A heartlands mantis ‍— a nymph not half a meter tall ‍— looks upon the vindicator clad in shadowsteel armor, her foveae dancing over the dark plates that reflect nothing. The imago juggernaut crouches, metal soundlessly grinding against metal, bringing her head down to the nymph’s eye level, mouthparts curling in friendly expression. “Hi there, little one.” She pauses a moment considering, then says, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A vesperbane!” The nymph bounces as they say it. “I want to be a hero and fight monsters with magic!”

The vindicator goes very still, thorax stiffening minutely so that she’s now positioned above and looking down. “A vesperbane is… They have to sacrifice many things. Happiness, innocence, hope ‍— they have to kill other people. Are you willing to do that?”

The nymph’s little antennae snap up sharply. “No! I don’t want to hurt other people. I won’t!”

The vindicator shakes her head and rises again to full height, standing twice as tall as the nymph. Regarding the child from that high angle, she laughs once, sadly, as she reaches out and pats the nymph’s head, and mutters, “Oh, worry not, little one. Soon you’ll kill people just by existing.”

Part 1: Overview

Introduction

Hi. If you’re here, you’re probably one of my players, or someone I asked for feedback. (Otherwise, why are you reading? How did you get here?) Either way, welcome! Direct all complaints to `Snuggle Squiggle#2126 on discord.

Black Nerve is a somewhat complex RPG system designed for playing magical praying mantises called vesperbanes, in a dark fantasy setting called the heartlands. It’s a grimdark world with some restraint, a harsh facade over a malicious core.

One of the main design goals is an emphasis on small, significant numbers, a variety of options, and elegant, keyword‍-​based rules. Importantly, note that Black Nerve is an exception‍-​based system; I choose to save a lot of hemming and hawing and have specific rules contradict general ones, rather than include “unless your special ability says otherwise” a hundred times; so just remember specific overrules general.

Generating a character requires the usual flavor stuff ‍— name and backstory ‍— and then rolling core stats, and then incorporating several ‘class templates’ which are somewhere between the granularity of point‍-​buy and the simplicity of normal class systems.

(Some options, mainly endowments, will give incur special points: Defect, a sort of mutation debt that has to be paid off before the character is valid, by selecting or rolling for penalties. See the section on Defect.)

Finally, from here on, bold text will mean ‘players pay attention’; it either defines keywords or describes things that (can) go on the character sheet.

P.S.: If you just want an idea of what this game is about, you might skip the next section (which mainly concern rpg groundwork) and start reading the section on the world or the section on classes.

P.P.S.: I don’t think I’ve seen very far, but I have stood on the shoulders of some pretty tall people. Probably most of the ideas in here are bunk, but for ones that aren’t, it’s because I lifted them from other RPGs. In no particular order:

• Usage dice and armor points are taken and modified from The Black Hack (no relation).
• The concept of Beginner’s Luck is due to Burning Wheel, modified very slightly.
• The combat system is very strongly inspired by Way of Steel, although little remains unchanged.
• The magic system (specifically enervate) is very loosely inspired by the GLOG. The class template system is more obviously inspired.
• The Fast‍-​Talk and Rapport skills are informed, telephone‍-​style, from the social skills in Call of Cthulhu. I had a vague memory of someone else describing them, and wrote them without access to a CoC sourcebook. It’s not fair to credit CoC if I mucked it up, but if there’s a resemblance, that’s why.

Introduction

Black Nerve makes use of many (many) dice pools. It needs dice of several different sizes, with enough funky mechanics that a mix of standard and nonstandard dice notion is used. For reference:

• XdY: as standard, roll X dice with Y sides. So 1d6 would be the trusty six sided die.
• XdY!: roll XdY exploding; whenever a die rolls the highest face, roll another die with the same rules.
• #dY: the die class of Y (see below).
• ?dY: roll a Y sided die, and keep rolling until the highest face comes up. Result is how many rolls you had to do. (usually you arent rolling them all at once, but e.g. every turn)
• UdY: usage dice (see below).
• XdY>Z: test dice. Each dice that rolls above Z is counted as one success.
• XdYt: also test dice. this notation is used when Z is zero, or implicit, to emphasize that the dice are tested, rather than summed.
• dN, dB, dV, dA: dice from special pools. Each will be explained in their section.

Black Nerve only uses the five “platonic” dice, and occasionally the constant d1. Especially in the more diverse pools, a notion of ‘die class’ is useful. It goes like this

Definitions

Black Nerve has many rules, keywords, and game‍-​mechanical objects. To make explaining them easier, this document uses a consistent, universal presentation. A definition is bulleted text, starting with bolded word (the thing to be defined), a colon separator, and the rules for that thing.

• Example: this is what a definition looks like.

A lot of different kinds of things will be defined in this manner, so the first part of a definition will be the kind of thing it is. This is either a rule for playing Black Nerve, a keyword for defining interaction between rules, an attribute that describes a quality of your character, an ability that your character has, or an item your character can use.

With that said, a few very general rules should be established.

• Fiddly: Keyword. I recognize that some rules in Black Nerve are quite complex with dubious actual value. Fiddly rules are those I deam interesting, but easy to remove if the players or GM are not enthused about it.
• Alternative [rule]: Keyword. Sometimes there are a few ways of doing something with their own issues and niceties. Usually there’s a ‘normal’ way of doing it, which is [rule], and the other ways will have this keyword. ([rule] is often omitted if the alternative immediately follows the original).
• Effective: Keyword. Whenever a rule changes the effective value of an attribute, treat the attribute as changed only within the scope of the rule.

Many definitions will have underneath them an indented list of italicized keywords beside more rules. This describes how the thing behaves under the influence of those keywords.

An example to illustrate this concept:

• Burn: Keyword. Damages an object due to flame or extreme heat.
• Candle: a stick of animal fat with a flammable wick. When lit, can be used to burn.
• Paper toy: a children’s toy made of folded paper.
  • Burn: becomes ash.

1. Usage Dice

   Many items in Black Nerve, such as ammunition, have special usage dice. This abstracts the bookkeeping of tracking very fine grained values, at the expense of disconnecting mechanic from fiction a little bit.

   • Use: Keyword. Roll a usage die. If it rolls 1, the dice is exhausted. If it rolls 2, the dice is discarded.
   • Exhaust: Keyword. Decrease the dice class of the usage die. If the die was a d4, consume it instead.
   • Discard: As exhaust. If the die is recovered, restore it to its original size.

2. Abilities

   Abilities have a number of mechanics, and this is the wrong place to explain most of them. A few properties are common across almost all of them, however.

   • Innate: Keyword. An ability that requires no specific training or practice to use. This ability does no take up an ability slot.
   • Trait: Keyword. This ability is a passive effect that requires no action to activate.
   • Bonus: Keyword. Many ability will grant you bonus this or a bonus that. ‘Bonus’ doesn’t mean much other than ‘an ability granted this’.
   • Natural: Keyword. Some ability specifically don’t apply to bonuses, and this keyword allows that. If something is not bonus, then it is natural.

   (To clarify the innate keyword, know that, for example, throwing a punch is innate. Obviously, but it can get funky with prerequisites; for another example, consider that constricting someone with a spike‍-​lined tentacle is alsof innate ‍— if you have a spiky tentacle. Now, the magic that gets you the tentacle probably isn’t innate, but that doesn’t matter. Innate is simply concerned with your present capabilities, nothing metaphysical.)

3. Actions

   In order to do things in Black Nerve, you take actions. Combat, exploration, and resting all use a generic delination of actions.

   • Action Degree: Rule. All actions have degree, which is one of: complete, major, minor, or free. Taking a complete action is equivalent to taking a major action and minor action, and taking a major action is equivalent to taking two minor actions. Any action is equivalent to taking it with a free action. Equivalent actions can be taken in place of each other, called ‘combining’ or ‘splitting’ as appropriate. Whenever a degree is used like a number, treat complete as 3, major as 2, and minor as 2.
   • Bonus Degrees: Rule. If a natural action is combined with a bonus action, the result is a bonus action.
   • Degree Diminuation: Rule. Inside of a {major, minor} action, your effective rank in any skill is reduced to {2/3s, 1/3s} of its natural rank.

4. Distance

   Black Nerve is designed to be played with a battle map, and many effects specify ranges in meters. Theater of mind is possible. Here’s a potential set of rules for that:

   • Distance: Rule. The distance between two things is either: close (within about 1 meter), nearby (between about 2‍-​6 meters), faraway (between about 7‍-​15 meters), or distant (beyond 12 meters). When increasing or decreasing distances: close + close = nearby, nearby + nearby = farwaway, faraway + faraway = distant.

   Which is to say, if I am nearby to you, and move away from you to somewhere nearby (to me), I am now faraway to you.

Attributes

Fundamentally, Black Nerve has six core attributes with a physical/mental split and some symmetry. The physical trio are the usual suspects for RPGs, and the mental trio is of my own devising, with, I hope, clearer semantics. All in all, the attributes aren’t super important, and mainly exist to inform certain derived stats.

• Constitution (Con): Attribute. Your resilience and fortitude. This is for withstanding harm from damage, exhaustion, or afflictions.

• Strength (Str): Attribute. Your heft and might. This is for hitting things and running fast. If there’s an obstacle in your way, Strength gets rid of it or otherwise overcomes it.

• Dexterity (Dex): Attribute. Your finesse and reflexes. This is for aiming, agility, and precise manipulations. If there’s an obstacle in your way, Dexterity finds a way around it.

• Composure (Cmp): Attribute. Your self‍-​control and mental health. This is for withstanding pain, conducting yourself well around others and introspection. It’s not charisma, but it’s similar.

• Attention (Att): Attribute. Your focus and memory. Attention is slow, deliberate thinking. This is for acquiring and recalling information, keeping watch, and thinking deeply. If you have a problem, Attention remembers the solution, or learns it.

• Insight (Ins): Attribute. Your creativity and brilliance. Insight is quick, decisive thinking. This is for noticing details and filling in gaps. If you have a problem, Insight discovers a solution, or the real problem.

• Rolling Base Attributes: Rule. Roll 2d6 seven times, and assign six of the results to base attributes.

• Array of Base Attributes: Rule. Alternative. Use this array of statistically average values: [11,9,8,7,6,4]

• Attribute Modifiers: Rule. The modifer of an attribute is its value divided by three.

• Attribute Dice: Rule. The die of an attribute has class equal to the attribute modifer. Attribute dice are referred do as d[Attr]. E.g., d[Str], d[Dex].

So with the array as an example, the modifiers would be [+3,+3,+2,+2,+2,+1], and the dice would be [d8,d8,d6,d6,d6,d4].

• Contesting Attributes: Rule. Contests have aggressors and defenders. Aggressors contest with their base attribute by rolling the attribute die. Defenders contest using half of a base attribute. If the aggressor rolls over this value, they succeed. If there is no clear aggressor, both parties roll. If they roll the same result, it is a tie. If there cannot be a tie, flip a coin.

There are a few derived stats:

• Stamina: Attribute. Your capacity to endure hits and withstand pain. Equals Con + (Str/2)
• Willpower: Equals (Cmp + Att)/2.
• Evasion: Your grace and twitch reflexes. Equals (Dex + Ins)/3
• Movement: Your running speed. Equals (Str + Dex)/3
• Perception: Your senses’ keenness. Equals (Att + Ins)/3
• Inventory slots: Your carrying weight. Equals Strength + 3
• Ability slots: The number of advanced moves you can comfortably remember. Equals Attention + 3

Skills

There are 15 skills in four different categories. Four mainly physical skills, four practical skills, four knowledge skills, and three magical skills that can each be counted as one of the other categories.

You have ranks in skills, and the ranks mean something like:

• 0: Not ‍-​ while you may have an interest in the skill, you have little or no actual ability to speak of.
• 1‍-​2: Novice ‍-​ you regularly engage in the skill with modest success, but you’re hardly more than a hobbyist.
• 3‍-​4: Middling ‍-​ you have a nice understanding of the skill, and may even practice it in service of others, done either to humor you or because they have no one else to turn to.
• 5‍-​6: Adept ‍-​ you are quite skilled, and either practice the skill professionally, or choose not to.
• 7‍-​8: Expert ‍-​ you’ve spent decades honing your skill, or you’re a natural prodigy. Either way, you’re the best that many will ever meet.

Skills go higher than this, but yours won’t.

The skills are:

• Strike: Skill. Ability to hit things with swings or thrusts.

• Aim: Skill. Ability to throw or shoot things on target.

• Endurance: Skill. Ability to power through exhaustion

• Acrobatics: Skill. Ability to maneuver with precision and balance.

• Sneak: Skill. Ability to move silently, patiently, and inconspicuously.

• Mechanism: Skill. Ability to manipulate mechanical systems such as locks or engines.

• Investigate: Skill. Ability to analyze, examine and search the world

• Fast‍-​talk: Skill. Ability to manipulate people into actions they might stop or regret on reflection.

• Education: Skill. Ability to knowledge of general topics and trivia.

• Culture: Skill. Ability to knowledge of languages and customs.

• Arcana: Skill. Ability to knowledge of ichor biology, umbral physics, and vesper nature.

• Survival: Skill. Ability to knowledge of hunting, gathering plants, and navigating in the wilderness.

• Biology: Skill. Ability to understand organisms and manipulate magical ichor.

• Technique: Skill. Ability to channel advanced umbral magics.

• Cogitation: Skill. Ability to connect with and understand your vespers.

(Every other level of Culture grants an extra language, including 0 which always gives Common. Further options include: Vespersign, Old Imperial, Percipient Code, the Bat Tongue, and Ant Common.)

Skill ranks are granted by class templates. See Part 3.

Skill Checks

The short version is:

• Skill Checks [DC]: Rule. On a [skill]([attr]) check, gain [skill] plus [attr]’s modifier in action points. Action points can be turned into d4! attempt dice and power points. To resolve a skill check, test attempt dice against 1, treat the check as a pass if the test yields more than DC successes.

Because this is so central to Black Nerve, I will spend a few paragraphs unpacking.

Skill checks are written Skill (Attr). Technically any combination of Skill and Stat is valid, but some are more common. E.g., you’ll usually make a Strike (Str) check for hitting things and Mechanism (Dex) for operating a complex device, but you might roll Strike (Ins) to feint, or Mechanism (Str) for some particularly strenuous device.

Skills checks are all about tradeoffs. On these checks you’ll get a certain number of action points. In ideal circumstances, you get one action points for each rank you have in a skill, plus the governing attribute modifier.

These action points ultimately are allocated to skill dice that roll against the difficulty class (DC) of the task, and to power points that increase the effectiveness of the outcome. Obviously, if you don’t allocate any points to skill dice, those zero dice yield zero and you (probably) fail. Generally allocating 0 power points results in an ineffective outcome.

So in short, you trading off between a greater chance of success and a bigger, riskier success.

Not all points necessarily go into these two boxes; the tools and abilities you use sometimes cost action points, and sometimes they give bonus action points.

Skill dice are d4s; 1s are fumbles, while rolls of 2 and above are as successes, and rolls of 4 are triumphs and they explode (roll another d4, same rules). In symbols, it’s Xd4!>2.

After you roll the dice, the action isn’t yet resolved. Frequently abilities let you turn dice into other values. For instance, a tricky weapon might let you turn successes into bonus damage. (Triumphs always count as successes.) Whenever a die is turned into a value this way, remove it from your pool. Be careful, if you rolled just above the target value, spending a success can botch the whole action.

That said, after all you’ve rolled the dice and fiddled with them, if there are more successes than the DC, you pass the check. And if more than half of the final dice are triumphs, it’s a critical. Conversely, if you don’t have enough successes, you fail the check.

(It’s worth lingering a moment on this terminology, it’s a bit weirder than RPG standard. Usually, you have successes and failures, and sometimes fumbles and criticals. Here, you have successes and fumbles that contribute to passes or fails. I chose to pair them as I did mostly aesthetically (monosyllable with monosyllable, duosyllable with duosyllable). That said, I have to write ‘on pass’ and ‘on fail’ a lot, and so that saves a few characters (granted, perhaps fewer total characters than I spent justifying the decision).)

With this resolution system, the average and most likely result is exactly the number of dice rolled, although unfortunately the vast majority of rolls will fall within 2‍-​3 places of this value.

This table may be helpful (columns are target values, rows are no. of dice):

Whenever you only have a few ranks in a skill, you can make that check with Beginner’s Luck. In this case, treat use the governing attribute as your effective skill, double the difficulty and take the check with disadvantage.

To tie it all together, if I wanted to punch someone with my Strike skill at 4 and my strength at 7 (+2), then I have 6 action points, and I can allocate 3 points to skill dice (rolling 3d4! and counting successes) to try and beat the difficulty class (here, the target’s evasion). If it passes, I can put 3 points into the skill power of the swing, which in this case increases the damage done.

Finally, outside of combat, you’ll be able to take your time, and be more careful and consistent with your endeavors. Unless noted otherwise, for skill checks not done in combat or immediate danger, you can proceed as though you rolled one success for every skill dice. For checks that rely on triumphs or failures, assume 1/3 of the dice are either.

Skill Training

Skills have a number of experience points which is at most the skill squared.

If a skill’s experience points increases when it’s equal to the skill squared, increase the skill. If a skill’s experience points falls below the skill squared, decrease the skill.

Specific rules for when experience is gained would be unsatisfactory, either requiring too much bookkeeping or being too simple. So it will be left mostly up to the GM’s discretion, more than most things already are. Some guidelines for things that usually indicate experience‍-​worthy behavior:

• killing a powerful mantis or equivalent in combat
• gaining a new vesper
• learning a new technique or molding a new endowment
• achieving a particularly difficult feat (DC>=skill?)
• completing a mission
• saving someone’s life
• gaining a antler piece worth of treasure
• anything the GM finds particularly impressive or clever

Unless it’s obvious what caused the experience gain, you can assign to whichever skill you like.

Each day, you can spend time training. Training this way lets you add an experience point to a skill, but it takes a number of hours equal to half the skill, and you incur a point of fatigue for each hour you spend training.

You can also do advanced training. This allows you to gain an additional experience points, but has certain requirements, most often someone to train against.

• Strike: a sparring partner with Strike or Acrobatics at least as high.

• Aim: a sparring partner with Acrobatics at least as high.

• Endurance: A kilometer of trails and roads to run. Fatigue gain is doubled.

• Acrobatics: free access to an environment encouraging nimble movement, such as a forest’s canopy or a town’s rooftops. Alternatively, a sparring partner with Strike or Aim at least as high.

• Biology: a blood dice, and a subject creature. Creature gain fatigue.

• Technique: a nerve dice.

• Cogitation: wager Arete.

• Sneak: sparring partners whose combined Perception is at least as high.

• Mechanism: a device and the tools to manipulate it.

• Investigation: an unfamiliar environment

• Fast‍-​talk: sparring partners whose combined Fast‍-​talk is at least as high.

• Rapport: allies whose combined Rapport is at least as high.

• Education: anyone willing to have a long conversation. Roll 1d20 under their Education.

• Culture: someone from an unfamiliar culture

• Arcana: as Biology, Technique, or Cogitation.

• Survival: nearby wilderness

In the case of sparring, it’s handled as combat. All hits deal 1 damage and blows that would inflict wounds don’t. It can be called off at any time, or ends whenever a participant lands three blows. Whoever wins the spar gains a bonus level of experience.

Any skill can undergo advanced training when you have access to a willing mentor or a book whose encoded skill exceeds yours.

Specializations

You can create specialized subskills at any time. A skill can’t have more subskills than its rank, and the subskills can’t be more than half its rank. Whenever you add experience points to the superskill, add one to its subskills. Experience points added directly to the subskill count as two points.

Whenever appropriate, you can add a subskill to your effective skill. Only one subskill can be used at once, and it’s whichever is most appropriate.

Damage, Fatigue and Injury

Stamina is an abstraction of your ability to dodge hits, roll with punches, withstand pain, and just get lucky. They’re, to borrow a phrase, “don’t get hit” points.

When take damage, you can lose Stamina along two different axes: fatigue and injury. Both of these reduce your capability and bring you closer to death, but the details differ. Fatigue represents light bangs and scrapes. Injury represents serious, lingering conditions. A rule of thumb: if you’re not going to feel it tomorrow, it’s fatigue. If you are, it’s injury.

Damage is an effect. All damage has a type, and you can have armor against different types of damage to increase your ability to resist it. In general, damage looks like XdY>AC. E.g., a sword might deal 2d4>AC slashing damage. For each dice that rolls above AC, gain 1 point of Fatigue. This is worth emphasizing, because it’s unusual. 2d4 damage does not do a raw 2‍-​8 damge. It does 0‍-​2 damage.

Wounds are written like bruise (2). 2 is the injury value of the wound. All wounds injure equal to their injury value.

Wounds are gained from three main sources:

• A hit that has more [power] than your armor wounds for the difference.
• A critical hit wounds for [power].
• When you’re vulnerable, all damage wounds.

All of the above conditions stack, so if you’re vulnerable and your foe lands a critical hit with power greater than your armor, you’re in for quite a bad time.

Wounds (and conditions) can be open (active) or closed (inactive), and these can have different effects.

Newly aquired wounds are open until they are closed, which happens either naturally or with medical attention. Closed wounds can later be opened. Any wound can be aggrieved, which increases its injury value if the wound is open, or opens it if it’s closed. Wounds can be mended, which closes them if they are open, and decreases their level if they are closed.

Your wounds list should be numbered. When you need to generate a random wound, roll 1d20 (or smaller), potentially rerolling until a valid wound comes up.

Where a wound is gained often matters. Roll on this table when appropriate:

When an effect first leaves you with Fatigue + Injury > Stamina, you gain exhaustion (1), a special condition that behaves similar to a wound, with slight differences.

Exhaustion: Condition. Injure for [level]. Lower your evasion toward 0 by [level]. When a hit leaves you with Fatigue + Injury > Stamina, aggrieve this for 1.

• Aggrieve: make a saving Endurance action or collapse unconscious for the duration of a short rest. Aggrieve a random wound.
• Open: reduce Movement by [level]. Become vulnerable. Take disadvantage on all exertions. If you take a long rest, mend this.
• Closed: Whenever you roll a respite dice, mend this for #d.

When you have Injury > Stamina, you will fall unconscious on your next rest, and then you have ?d4 hours to receive medical attention or you will die.

There are two effects that restore stamina: respite and energize. 1 point of either removes 1 point of fatigue. The difference, besides conditions like exhaustion keying off only one, is that respite can only be gained at rests, but you can be energized in combat, along with a few other wrinkles (see the list of Conditions in part 3)

Rests and Meals

There are two main types of rest: short rests and long rests. A short rest is at least an hour spent without serious exertion, and a long rest is 6‍-​8 hours of sleep. You can take actions when you rest, and rest actions have the same degree as regular actions. A short rest gives you 1 complete rest action per hour, and a long rest gives you 2 complete rest actions (before you sleep and after you wake up).

A short rest grants 1 point of respite per hour, and a long rest is (usually) 1d4+1 points. Eating a live meal (rather than trail rations) gives a bonus d4 of respite, as will having a comfortable places to rest (a bedroll doesn’t count) and an overall safe and relaxing environment (not on guard). All three conditions constitute a full rest.

You have to eat at least 3 meals daily. A meal can either be eaten normally, or rationed. Eating a meal normally lets you roll its respite dice and gain that much, but the food die is exhausted for 1. Rationing it lets you merely use the food die, but you only gain 1 point of respite.

How many meals you’ve eaten is your satiation. If you take a long rest with no satiation, ‍-​2 to all attributes and take 3d4>0 internal damage (wound: starvation). If you have 1 satiation, take 1d4>0 internal damage (same). If you have 2 satiation, recover only 1d1 stamina for the rest (instead of 1d4). If you 3 satiation (barring other conditions, this is called full satiation), there is no penalty. After a long rest, lose all satiation.

Starvation: Condition. Injures for [level]. ‍-​1 to all attributes. When you rest with full satiation, mend this for 1.

On long rest, you gain 1 point of natural mending. If you’re at full satiation, gain another point. If this is a full rest, gain another still. Natural mending is applied to a random wound.

Combat

Combat is broken into rounds. Rounds don’t have a fixed duration, but last a few moments ‍— anywhere from one second to several. During a round, each combatant (usually) gets a turn to take actions, and the round is over whenever everyone has had their turn. These turns aren’t diegetic; fighters aren’t actually politely waiting to go one after the other. But it helps organize the flow of combat. In the game’s fiction, it’s more or less assumed that “turns” happen somewhat simultaneously.

• Initiative: Attribute. An abstract measure of your situational awareness in the current engagement.
• Rolling Initiative: Rule. Everyone involved in the current engagement rolls their Dex die. Any ties get a coin toss: winner gain +1 Initiative. Highest Initiative takes their actions first.

Each turn you get one complete action and one major reaction. Combat proceeds by making actions and reactions. A reaction is a special type of action.

• Reaction: Rule. Whenever something can trigger reactions, anyone aware of that thing can take a reaction. No action can be taken as a reaction unless it says so. You can take no reactions until you first turn.

There are about three broad classes of action you can take.

• Movement: Ability. Innate. Exertion. A {complete, major, minor} move gives you {all, 2/3s, 1/3s} of your Movement attribute as action points. If playing with a map, each action point allows you to move a meter each, otherwise a {complete, major, minor} movement let you go anywhere {faraway, nearby, close}. The start and the end of a movement can triggers reactions.

• Shift: Ability. Innate. Minor action. A shift can only move 1 meter (close). Shifts do not trigger reactions.

• Skill actions: A {complete, major, minor} skill actions gets action points equal to {all, 2/3s, 1/3s} of your skill. When you spend all your action points, how you spent them is your intent. Before the action is resolved, your intent is declared to anyone aware of you, and this can trigger preemptive reactions. The end of the action can triggers reactions.

The last broad class is the miscellaneous actions. These aren’t unified; here and there in the text it will say things like ‘you can take a minor action to do this’, and it’s exactly as described.

Two miscellaneous actions of note are catching your breath and looking for openings.

• Catch your breath: Ability. Innate. If you have gained fatigue this combat, then as a {minor, major, complete} action, lose up to degree many points of fatigue (not more than you’ve gained). Lose degree in Initiative. For this turn, treat your evasion as lower by degree. If you have sustained any hits, test Fatigue + {d4,d6,d8} against Stamina; on ‘success’, you notice fresh wounds as the adrenaline fades: gain a new wound as if from the last hit you sustained.

• Look for openings: Ability. Innate. Reroll your iniative with a bonus equal to degree.

• Overexertion: Rule. On any exertion, you can gain up to as many bonus points as you have ranks in Endurance ({2/3, 1/3} if {major, minor}). For each point gained, test your Con die against 3. On failure, gain a point of fatigue. You can Exert with Beginner’s Luck (using Con), and gain double the fatigue.

• Deferring Turns: Rule. Fiddly. Before you take any actions, you can choose to defer your turn. When you defer your turn, you can resume your turn as a free reaction.

You can only react to thing you’re aware of. If a creature is hidden from you, you aren’t aware of them. If an action is done with a speed higher than your Evasion, you aren’t aware of it.

For Sneak actions, you have a Stealth value, equal to Dex + Ins/2. Failed Sneak checks incurs Suspicion, which accrues against Stealth. When Suspicion equals Stealth, you’ve given yourself away, and your targets have started looking for you. When a Sneak check is passed, you get [power] many action points to perform a sneaky action. The DC of a sneak check is a sum of:

• Clarity, indicating how easy perception is. It ranges from 0+0+0 (total darkness, noisy, and smelly) to 8+4+6 (sunlight, silence, downwind).
• Awareness, this is your target(s)’s perception: half if they are unaware of you, double if they are looking for you, equal if they are simply on guard. Only include this if you are in line of sight, earshot, etc.
• Proximity: the farther away you are, the more negative this term becomes.

You can make a Sneak reaction when someone unknowingly does something that would reveal you.

Suspicion sources are effect dice against your Disguise value, a kind of stealth armor.

• +1d8 (they saw something), +1d6 (they smelt something), +1d4 (they heard something)
• ‍-​1d1 (a turn spent without making a stealth check)

Magic

Magical techniques use the Technique, Biology, or Cogitation skills. The rules for this will be spelled out in the sections on Umbra, Ichor, and Vespers respectively.

Some techniques, especially magical ones, require focus. (By default, just 1 point. If it needs more, it will specify).

The main way of building focus is with the concentrate action.

• Concentrate: Ability. Innate. As a minor action, roll your Attention die against 3 plus your focus, and gain 1 focus on success.

When you take an action that requires focus, you lose the required focus if you fail, but not if you succeed. Whenever you take an action that requires focus, you can spend a point of focus to gain a bonus action point. Two points let you turn a fumble into a success.

When you gain fatigue, lose all focus.

Melee

• Attack: Keyword. Means this ability for inflicting damage against opponents. Abilities and keywords can specify they only apply to attacks. All attacks are exertions.

A successful attacks deals one point of fatigue plus whatever effects the weapon has; usually dice tested against the target’s armor. This means even strikes against heavily armored foes do at least one damage. Weapon dice size naturally vary based on attack and weapon, but it generally ranges from d4 (light damage) to d8 (heavy damage).

• Power Strikes: Rule. Fiddly. If the power of an attack is greater than the target’s armor, treat their armor as less by 1. If the power is greater than their evasion, treat their evasion as less by 1.

• Dual Wielding: Rule. Fiddly. If you are wielding two weapons, you can spend an action point to gain a bonus minor attack.

1. Combos and Stances

   • Combos: Rule. Whenever you land a hit, you can turn one success into a combo point. Before you resolve a Strike action, you can spend an action point to turn any number of combo points into successes. You can spend two combo points to turn a failure into a success. If you start your turn with more combo points than your Strike skill, lose all excess points.

   There are a few special stances you can enter with a minor action. They have bonuses and drawbacks, and each has a special use for combo points. Whenever you change stances, lose all combo points.

   In these definitions, [combo] means your current combo. Combo is not spent on these passive effects.

   • Off‍-​balance: This is a special stance that’s more of a non‍-​stance. When you become off‍-​balance, you exit whatever stance you’re in. When you’re knocked off‍-​balance, you automatically return to neutral stance at the start of your turn or before making actions.
   • Neutral stance: The default stance, effective with no particular strengths or weaknesses.
   • Aggressive stance: Gain an bonus attack action every turn. Gain [combo] in disadvantage on any defense reactions. Whenever you get hit, lose a combo point. On any strike action, you can spend combo points on a bonus power point each.
   • Protective stance: Gain a bonus defense reaction every turn. Gain [combo] in disadvantage on any attack. When you would take damage, combo points can be spent to negate one damage point each. When you would be staggered, become off‍-​balance instead.
   • Graceful stance: Gain +1 Evasion. At the end of each turn, add [combo] to your Iniative. Missing an attack breaks stance. Getting hit staggers you. On any exertion, combo points can be spent to gain one bonus action point each.

2. Melee Techniques

   [combo] means any combo points spent on this technique. Combo points spent on successes do not count toward this value. This is opposite the sense in the previous section.

   • Basic strike: Innate. Attack. Strike (Str), DC: target’s Evasion. Hit your target with a (possibly natural) weapon. Deals 1 Fatigue and attacks with weapon.
   • Heavy strike: Attack. Strike (Str), DC: target’s Evasion. Hit your target with a mighty blow. Attack with weapon; excess successes can be turned into d[Str] damage dice.
   • Charge: As basic strike. If a movement action was taken immediately prior to this attack, gain advantage and any leftover action points as bonus action points.
   • Feint: Attack. Strike (Ins), DC target’s Perception. Target gets no preemptive reactions to this attack. If this fails, test against target’s Evasion without rerolling ‍— if this passes, declare your intent. Attack with weapon. Even when this attack misses, two success can be turned into a combo point.
   • Transition strike: Attack. Strike (Dex). DC [combo] + target’s Evasion. Deal 1 fatigue. Change stances immediately and gain [combo] combo points.
   • Finishing blow: DC target’s Evasion. On pass, damage with weapon plus [combo]d[Str] damage (type as weapon).
   • Flurry of blows: DC [combo] + target’s Evasion. On success, target is hit with up to [combo] seperate attacks, one for each success.
   • Counter: DC target’s Evasion. As basic strike. On success, add target’s combo to the power of this attack.
   • Interrupting strike: DC target’s Combo + target’s Evasion. As basic strike. On success, knock target off‍-​balance.

3. Reach

   Additionally, as an optional rule, every melee weapon can have a certain reach, which is either ‘short’, ‘normal’, ‘long’ or ‘extended’. Except for extended reach weapons, only opponents within a meter of you can be engaged in melee. Opponents you can engage are either a) in your guard, b) in effective reach, or c) out of reach. Opponents not in reach (whether in your guard or out of reach) have a bonus to Evasion depending on the difference. So if I were wielding a dagger (short reach) and you had a greatsword (long reach) and I was in your guard, I would have a +2 to Evasion. If you had a regular sword (normal reach), that only would be +1. Lastly, if you had a lance (extended reach) that would be +3.

   Before any hits have been exchanged, the person with the longest‍-​reaching weapon starts in effective reach. Whenever you land a strike, you move into effective reach. Whenever you miss, your opponent moves into effective reach. As a minor action or reaction, you can try to get into reach. This always succeeds unless your opponent contests it, and it can only be contested with a minor reaction of their own. If your opponent is inside your guard, you can either push them back (contested with Str) or backpedal (contested with Dex). If they’re out of reach, you can attempt to press forward; you can pick Str or Dex to contest with, and so can your opponent.

   (Now, speaking as if weapons have reaches is something of a leaky abstraction. Some weapons have multiple attacks; for instance, a sword can slash or stab. Sword slashes are normal reach, but stabs are long reach. Of course, not all weapons have multiple attacks, and those that do tend to have ‘default’ attacks.)

   A full list of weapons is available in part 3.

Ranged

Like many items in Black Nerve, most ranged weapons have special usage dice, here representing ammo. When you make an attack with a ranged weapon, you must also use this die. Discarded usage dice can be recovered at the end of combat, reverting the die size decrease.

An inventory slot can store a Ud20, or X dice if their classes sum to 5 or less. As a free rest action, usage dice can be split and combined. A die can be aggregated with a die of one class smaller to great a die one class bigger than the larger die. One dice can be split into two dice the same way. 2 d4s can be combined ito a d6. D20s can’t be combined, and d4s can’t be splitp.

For ranged attacks themselves, they can make use of a value called tracking. It’s halfway between focus and combo. When you land a shot, you can turn one success into a point of tracking. You can line up a shot without firing; no ammo is consumed and no damage is dealt, but tracking can be gained. One action point and one tracking point can give one sucess, and two trackig points can turn a failure into a success.

Defense

Defense is composed of two stats: Evasion and Armor. These are similar, but different. Both reduce the chance of taking damage, but have different interactions. Some attacks ignore evasion (area effect attacks, quick attacks, stealth attacks), and evasion is reduced when you are vulnerable. Some attacks ignore armor (most attacks that deal non‍-​kinetic damage), and a special type of reaction can spend armor points to ignore damage.

There are three basic defensive reactions you can take. Remember that reactions have degrees too, which affect the number of action points skills confer.

Block: Premptive reaction. Defense. Targets incoming attack. Expend a point of armor and ignore all attack damage. Can only be done if armor has points left.

Parry: Reaction. Strike (Dex). Targets incoming melee attack. Gain one bonus evasion against the attack for each success. Reduce the effective power of the attack for each point of power.

Dodge: Reaction. Acrobatics (Dex). Targets incoming attack. For each success, gain a point of evasion against the attack. If target misses, move as shift.

When you have spent armor points, as a rest action you can try to repair it. Roll a 1d6 for each point expended, regaining a point for each die that rolls over the armor value, permanently losing a point for each die that doesn’t.

An exception to the above is natural armor, which you cannot repair. Negating an attack with natural armor this way instead gives a wound (crushed chitin (1)).

Social Engagements

When you encounter a creature, you roll impression (4d6, drop highest and lowest and subtract 7). This ranges from very favorable (‍-​5) to neutral (0) to very disfavorable (+5). What exactly it means depends a lot on the creature; a disfavorable impression from a civilian might still grant you basic politeness, while even a very favorable impression from a ravenous monster might only mean it growls for a few seconds and still attacks if you dont immediately flee.

If the Impression roll and the creature itself allows for talking, you can initiate a social engagement, which involves Morale and Willpower.

Morale is a usage die, rolled after every social skill check. When it runs out, your interlocutor is out of patience and won’t entertain further serious conversation. Each turn uses Morale.

Willpower is like social armor, and Stress accrues against it, reducing the effective value. Comfort removes Stress.

When people do things, it’s for a reason. People have Beliefs and Instincts. Beliefs are any motivation, opinion or conviction. Instincts are habits and deep values. Each has a number associated with it, its level. If Beliefs conflict, the higher level one will tend to win out. If a Belief or Instinct conflicts with an Instinct, going against the Instinct requires a conscious decision and incurs a point of Stress.

The two social skills are Rapport and Fast‍-​talk. Generally, Fast‍-​talk is for affecting someone’s beliefs. Rapport is for affecting their mood. Each rolls against the opponent skill.

The level of the most relevant Belief or Instinct and the Impression modifier is added to the DC of social checks.

People can have Moods, which affect social and morale rolls.

Moods:

• Amused: Positive. Prevents the next Morale usage, losing a level each time. On gaining stress, remove this mood.
• Cheerful: Positie. On entering a positive mood, gain Comfort.
• Curious: Positive. Prevent the next Fast‍-​talk check from using morale, losing a level each time.
• Angry: Negative. Every Fast‍-​talk check exhausts Morale. On gaining Stress, gain a level of this. On inflicting Stress or damage, lose a level of this.
• Stubborn: Negative. Makes the next Rapport check uses Morale, losing a level each time.
• Hateful: Negative. At the end of each turn, use Morale.
• Terrified: Positive. Gain [level] Stress at the end of each turn. On gaining comfort, remove this mood.
• Confident: Positive. Prevents the next Stress.
• Calm: Positive. When a negative mood would be entered, lose this mood instead.

When a creature enters a positive mood, alter Impression positively, and negatively for a negative mood. To alter an Impression, roll 2d6‍-​7. If the result is higher (if positive) or lower (if negative) than the current Impression, the result becomes the new impression.

There are a few basic social techniques. The most fundamental is to inform. Informing a character tells them that something is the case, and they can choose to gain a belief about it or not. This requires no check, unless you want to convince them. When convincing, you can make an argument and/or present evidence to gain bonus dice at the GM’s discretion.

Another fundamental technique is to ask. When you ask, a character can choose to answer or not and how. Similar to convincing, you can demand to coerce a character into answering.

Social engagements are usually about getting a character to do something. The way to do that is make them believe they want it, and the easiest way to do that is often attaching that something to a thing they already want, especially instintually.

For instance, most characters want not to die. Informing them you’ll kill them if they don’t do the thing can do the trick, albeit bluntly. Many characters want to help people who help them. Credibly informing them that you’ll help them can work.

Intimidate: Exhaust Morale for 1. On success, inflict terrified for [power].

Entice: TODO

After an engagement, their impression is frozen to an opinion and added to their beliefs on rest. If they already have an opnion, the average is frozen

Races

All players should play a Heartlands Mantis, a genus of giant, sentient mantises. They’re about a meter long and stand anywhere between half a meter to a meter tall depending on how vertical their legs and thorax are. (Gamewise, medium size class).

Unlike most insects, mantids do not undergo any metamorphosis; nymphs are largely just smaller imagos. Notably, for winged mantids, only imagos have wings. Some species of Heartlands Mantis are winged, but all winged Heartlands mantids are brachypterous, meaning their wings are incapable of flight, and only cover about half their abdomen.

All mantids start with:

• Mantid grace: gain a rank in Strike, Acrobatics, and Sneak.
• Mantid forelegs: your forelegs are a spike‍-​lined vise. Start with Raptorial Forelegs as a natural weapon.
• Mantid acrobatics: You have a jumping action. As a minor action, you can hop 1 meter. As a major action, you can jump 2 meters. As a complete action, you can leap 3 meters.
• Mantid lunge: You can take a special complete action combining a leap and a major attack. Gain 1/3 of your Acrobatics in skill points for this action.
• Mantid Stillness: When sneaking, you can remain completely still. +1 natural Disguise.
• Exoskeleton: Parts of your body are covered in chitin. Gain 1 natural armor. When gaining slashing wounds, reduce their level by 1.

There are six extant species of these mantids, but I’m loath to add stat differences between them. In brief:

• Welkin: have a ‘welkinmark’ on their foreheads. It looks like a majuscule greek omega symbol with a miniscule greek omega symbol inside, and it has a faint enervation signature. This symbol has religious and ideological significance. This race tends to have red, purple, or blue chitin, like flowers.
• Northern Apter: wingless. Pale chitin, tends to be thicker set.
• Southern Apter: wingless. Tends to have chitin in browns, greens or yellows.
• Half‍-​winged: dark, warm‍-​colored chitin. Smaller wings than Welkin.
• Full‍-​winged of the east: rare immigrants from another continent. Somewhat larger wings than welkin, still not capable of flight. Bright, multicolored chitin, famously beautiful.
• Formicoid: also wingless. has strong resemblance to ants.

(There are other races, even rarer than the full‍-​winged and less trusted than the formicoid ‍— the felmants of the deepest underground, the glassy‍-​chitin’d, weevil‍-​touched sylvans that no one is sure exist, and the cursed bat‍-​blooded. For now, you cannot play these races.)

There is bigotry in the heartlands; all races but Welkin experience discrimination and oppression, the wingless ones moreso than others, and the society is deeply matriarchal. In the modern period ‍— the era of peace ‍— the Theca of Mantiskind is moving in a more progressive direction. Regardless, this bigotry will generally be de‍-​emphasized in my games.

Non‍-​mantids

Let’s briefly go over the other creatures of the heartland that range from subsapient to supersapient.

• The Vesperbats are the ancient enemies of mantiskind, and the original hosts for the vespers. After the apocalypse plague and the millenia‍-​long wars of the era of hope, these former hunters have been driven to the fringes of the world, and are now hunted throughout the outlands. Everyone will tell you: There are no vesperbats in the heartlands. It’s a joyous declaration.
• The Noble Roaches are about half the size of mantids, and in the theca of mantiskind they are charged with farming and various manual labors. They are gregarious and good‍-​natured, moreso than mantids. They are sometimes taught to speak words or simple sentences, but generally have trachae physiologically unable to speak intelligible Common. They chitter amongst themselves, but few mantids care to decode what sense lies it, or recognize there is sense in it.
• The Cavern Ants cannot speak, only produce harsh sounds with the scraping of their bodyparts, and are perceived as primitive, with a strange and idiotic culture. Sometimes mantids make trade with them, and sometimes they make war.
• The Greenweb Spiders and their photosynthetic weaves are what make the western canyons livable. Due to an ancient magical contract from the tyrannical Third Dominion, the spiders owe loyalty and servitude to mantids.
• The Ambrosia Weevils were a menace of dubious intelligence. No one knows if they are still around, and with most of the groves that once littered the land now destroyed or desecrated, no one much cares.
• The Termites are long gone, by every indication, and their only remnant are massive, cyclopean mounds, hidden and half sunken throughout the land, which must have stood untouched and untouchable for hundreds of centuries.

Vesperbanes

Vesperbanes are the magical servants of the theca who walk a path of pain and sacrifice to protect the heartlands, wielding flesh and shadow. It’s a short, vile, and dangerous road and many can’t handle it. The vesperbanes of the heartlands come in four varieties. The battle‍-​queens of the Wardens are the heartlands’ defense against bat‍-​birthed abominations and crepuscules. The knowledge‍-​hunters of the Stewartry are the doctors, artisans, and architects that bring the magic of vespers to everyday life. The mavericks are mercenaries countenanced by the Alliance to take contracts and serve clients without directly answering to any organization. Finally, the renegades are those vesperbanes who have transgressed against the Dream. You cannot play a renegade.

But first, a word about backgrounds: essentially, there are three. Either you 1) voluntarily chose to become a vesperbane, 2) you are a tribute, conscripted as remittance for a heroic debt, (a nymph raised for such? a criminal or gambler staving off execution or bankruptcy?), or 3) you were born into a vesperbane clan, heir to special magics. Except for the last one, this is largely flavor. For now, you cannot play a clan vesperbane, but this may (probably will) change.

Ranking System

Vesperbanes can be loosely divided into ‘ranks’. This ranking system originated in the Vindicator’s Guild as a threat assessment system, hence the less than flattering titles.

Subwretch is the lowest rank, and generally those vesperbanes who have not graduated whatever school they are training at. This rank was historically known as ‘thrall’, a term now avoided in official contexts due to its use as a wingless slur.

Wretches are the rank that sees actual work in the field. Usually wretches can do little more than coarse enervate manipulation and basic ichor fixations. Wretches are those vesperbanes a six mantis fireteam is sufficient to take out.

‘Arch‍-​wretch’ is an awkward, seldom used term for more experienced wretches, usually those who can manifest the Wretched Raptorials. These are those fit to command other wretches when no fiend is available. You will generally be playing an Arch‍-​wretch.

A Fiend is a vesperbane who has crossed the Reaping Black desert to receive training at Greci, and are often required to master the ‘fiendish four’, a suite of complex, powerful techniques. Fiends are those vesperbanes it would take a legion to ensure defeat.

An Arch‍-​fiend is a master vesperbane. There are two ways to become an arch‍-​fiend: place first in the yearly Arch‍-​fiend Selection Exams, a gladiatorial tournament, or devise a new magic technique significant enough to be deemed promotion‍-​worthy. Arch‍-​fiends are those vesperbanes who protect towns and cities as rangers and knights, or the professors who teach the next generation.

A Scourge is a somewhat informal rank for those exceptionally talented banes who’ve reached heights infeasible for most. There is no set criterion for becoming a scourge, beyond the recognition of other scourges. It’s sometimes joked that it would take not a fireteam, not a legion, but an entire campaign to defeat a scourge. There’s at most a few dozen scourges in the heartlands. More than a third are renegades.

Lastly, there are nine Overscourges. They are the arbiters with command over any warden, steward or maverick operating in their jurisdiction. One overscourge operates in every province in the alliance except the Welkin Peaks, which has no vesperbanes, as well as one in Greci. An Overscourge selects their successor.

(Some legends invent an eighth rank, aglaeca, for those monstrous vesperbanes who were able to match the might of vesperbat titans, almost always through the use of forbidden techniques. ‘Aglaeca’ has never been recognized as a ranking.)

Money

Currency in the heartlands is derived from the remains of vesperbats.

Claw pieces (cp) are the lowest denominations, made from their endlessly growing and continuously shed claws.

Bone pieces (bp) are the next lowest, made from a skeleton hardened with metal.

Antler pieces (ap) are next, made from the intricate and lustrous horns grown by the bats after a century of life, when they become elders.

Soul pieces (sp) are the highest denomination, shards of a fallen bat’s shattered soul, still denser than that of any other creature.

For simplicity, each will be worth 100 of the previous.

You start with 10 bp.

A day laborer can expect to make a few claw pieces a day. A single unpreserved ration of food generally costs 1 cp.

Part 2: Magic

Umbra

The sky is a dark ocean of fractal whorls, writhing tendrils, and black turbulence. Where there once were volcanoes, spires of iron and copper stab free of the ground and reach for heaven. Instead of a moon, there is a dark orb constantly emitting corruption energy.

There are turbines and fridges available to all but the poorest homes; except when they break, their fumes can poison entire neighborhoods. A carefully constructed room can have an interior vast as a mansion. In the secret research sites scattered across the artic wastes, percipients grow enormous, formless unstars that look like holes carved into reality.

Vesperbanes can wield the five elements; shadowcallers can level and blight entire towns; arch‍-​fiends can redesign molecules and some have walked through walls. Vindicators can kill all of them.

The answer to how, for all these facts, is the same at the root: a substance variously known as enervate, black nerve, umbra, or liquid shadow. It is central to vesperbane practice.

Mechanically, enervate is represented by a quantity of nerve dice, a kind of usage dice, which can be stored in souls or nerve‍-​crystals. Unlike most conceptions of magic, umbra is very material, simply an inorganic substance with peculiar physics.

A full description of enervate properties and mechanics would take too much space, suffice it to know:

• Enervate absorbs energy, including force, heat, sound, and light. If enervate absorbs too much, its properties start to change. How much it’s absorbed is its saturation. Enervate that oversaturates decays.
• Enervate is black unlike anything else. Unsaturated, it has no shadows and no form, and appears as a flat absence of color from every angle. As it saturates, it becomes more transparent.
• Most enervate attracts and is attracted to dense, massive elements via its so‍-​called induction, and to other enervates via its cohesion. When enervate permeates an object, it is imbued.
• Enervate permeates and devastates what matter it comes into contact with: any structure erodes, and in the wake of imbuement matter looks as if it has dissolved, melted and imploded all at once.
• Living creatures innately, if coarsely, smell enervate, and recoil from it as from bitter poison or sour acid. Better yet, think hot capsaicin: it’s not a taste, but a visceral burning sensation. Enervate is worse than all these quales, a feeling described as a palpable dread. This is sometimes leveraged by vesperbanes to deliver a ‘killing intent’.
• It rarely matters, but enervate extends extra dimensionally. This allows enervate and imbued objects to be shockingly dense, and causes nerve‍-​forces to fall off faster than light or gravity.
• Enervate is not a single substance, but a whole menagerie of different flavors with a complex parachemistry between them. An enervate can ‘fission’ into simpler forms if it oversaturates, and it can ‘fuse’ into complex compounds under pressure.

Exposure to enervate can deliver umbral damage. It’s essentially a poison effect. For each point of umbral damage, you roll a nerve die (dN) at the end of each turn, and every dice that exceeds your umbral armor deals a point of damage (wound: umbral wound).

Particularly energetic targets (e.g., torches) have an effective umbral armor equal to their intensity, but this consumes fuel.

Non‍-​vesperbanes might have to make a save against umbral dread if there is too much enervate nearby, and lose morale if it fails.

Umbral Techniques

Most Vesperbanes make use of umbral techniques: essentially, spells utilizing enervate. They require enervate usage dice.

All spells have a DC that you roll against (using the Technique skill) when trying to cast them. Action points that aren’t spent on dice or power can be used to add extra nerve dice to the technique. Roll a usage dice for each nerve dice. (A usage dice can be used like this more than once, but not more times than its die class). Some techniques can modify the behavior of the usage dice (e.g., some are impossible to exhaust with, or guaranteed to exhaust.)

In a technique’s description, [nerve] refers to the result of rolling nerve dice against target’s umbral armor.

Interference is possible whenever nerve dice roll the same number. Look up the repeated value on the interference table, applying the effect again for each extra repeat if more than 2 repeat the same value. The Interference table is in Part 3

Enervate usage dice are mainly stored in your soul.

• Soul: Organ for storing enervate. By default, can store enervate usage dice whose classes sum to at most 5, but endowments can increase this. Storing more than this consumes inventory slots and gives you umbral damage if you try to rest like this.

1. Imbuement

   Weapons and armor can be imbued. This means they are coated in enervate and harness its properties. Equipment has a certain number of imbuement slots (usually, zero), and imbuing it with more than this many nerve dice will cause damage.

   If a weapon is coated in enervate, each successful strike deals umbral damage against the target’s umbral armor. When this damage fails, the die decays and the slot is emptied.

   If armor is coated in enervate, gain +1 umbral armor for each imbued die, and whenever you receive kinetic damage, roll the imbued dice against the attack’s power. Failures decay and empty the imbuement slot, successes negate a point of damage. If there are more imbued dice than incoming damage, don’t roll more dice than that.

Ambient Umbra

Environments can have a varying amount of latent enervate. This can be beneficial and dangerous. It’s represented as a number: a rating of 0‍-​3 indicates a normal area which only the most sensitive could take note of; between 4‍-​6, the area feels off, and long rests can incur umbral damage; for 7‍-​9, it’s become quite dangerous, and even short rests are fraught; above 10, the area is extremely lethal, incurring umbral damage on combat time scales.

Where necessary, you can get an ambient umbra modifier, which is the score divided by 3.

Enervate Varieties

There are many different kinds of enervate. Some are useless, or serve utility roles. Only a few are commonly used by most Vesperbanes.

Foremost is what’s called the primary sequence of enervate, the most common natural enervates that everyone uses and knows of. (In parenthesis is the size of their nerve die.)

• Alpha‍-​nrv (d1): weighs extremely little, and exerts no forces on matter. Technically speaking, most enervate is alpha‍-​nrv, even though it only occurs through decay of higher enervates. It’s sometimes considered ‘subprimary’, and often called a waste enervate ‍— vesperbanes using umbral techniques are quickly surrounded by an ‘aura’ of alpha‍-​nrv. Decays to thermal radiation (effectively, nothing), and fuses to beta‍-​nrv. Useless in almost all techniques.
• Beta‍-​nrv (d4): light and gaseous and extremely common. Beta‍-​nrv is the utility enervate, and sets the expectation for enervate behavior. For this reason, there is little notable to say about it; rather, enervate is notable when it isn’t like beta‍-​nrv. Decays to alpha‍-​nrv, fuses to gamma‍-​nrv.
• Gamma‍-​nrv (d8): an advanced enervate. Gamma‍-​nrv is massive and voluminous, the combat bane’s darling. Generally, gamma‍-​nrv is “beta‍-​nrv, but more”. It exerts a noticeable pull on nearby matter, and bring a chill to any room. Decays to beta‍-​nrv, fuses to delta‍-​nrv.
• Delta‍-​nrv (d12): exponentially more heavy, more expensive and harder to wield than its precursor. It has its uses, but few rely on it. Its saturation thresholds are so high that an hour in the sun would leave it untouched. Exposing a room to delta‍-​nrv noticeably lowers the amount of oxygen and argon in the air as they are pulled by induction. Decays to gamma‍-​nrv, attempts to fuses it will break the pump. See below.

For the fusion of alpha‍-​, beta‍-​, and gamma‍-​nrv, one uses pistons made of saturated matter/enervate amalgams to create extreme pressures, squeezing the enervate ever tighter until its constituents overcome repulsion and fuse. Alpha becomes beta, beta becomes gamma, and gamma, when you can achieve it, becomes delta.

But delta‍-​nrv is the exception to this rule. Or perhaps it’s the point where hitherto neglected terms in the equation start to matter. Either way, attempting to compress delta‍-​nrv in this manner runs aground on what’s called the epsilon defect.

Epsilon‍-​nrv is an annoying byproduct of enervate fusion, particularly of heavy enervates. It experiences no cohesion, only induction. It is small and light, so where beta‍-​nrv could only stare needily at any matter it is attracted to, epsilon can sidle right up to it ‍— so much so that it can warp the bonds which bind matter, acting as a corrosive agent (a process called neurolysis, or even just epsilysis) and forging nerve‍-​bonds between itself and matter, creating the amalgams.

In this way, epsilon‍-​nrv is the punctuation mark at the end of the primary sequence. From here begins the secondary pathways.

Many of the secondary varieties of enervates are amalgams, substances that are neither pure matter nor pure enervate. Phenomena, like alpha‍-​nrv cohesion, that mainly affect enervate still effect amalgams, and phenomena, like temperature and kinetics, that mainly affect matter will still effect amalgams.

Most interestingly, and least understood, is that imbued enervate’s properties can be warped by matter in certain amalgams. This allows amalgams to have behavior impossible for pure enervate. An example is the “neurophobic” amalgam zeta‍-​nrv, which always has negative cohesion, or the “universal repellant” upsilon‍-​nrv, which perplexingly has anti‍-​induction ‍— and is essential in the construction of parallel spaces.

It’s a spectrum, obviously; on one end you have blackbronze and shadowsteel, effectively regular matter with a touch of the umbral, and then you have those listed here, which may as well be enervate as much as the primary sequence is.

The first amalgam to describe would be the one every vesperbane needs, the first one truly discovered (and not by mantids):

• Chi‍-​nrv (d4) is a sort of energy currency of the vespers, not unlike the ATP molecule. It can be used as fuel, for devices that require fuel, and it can be consumed to energize. Certain techniques require chi‍-​nrv.

Now I’d be remiss not to quickly move on to the six great enervates, described mechanically in part 3, and flavorfully below.

• Rho‍-​nrv (d6): rho is singular among enervates for its inverted cohesion. Where other enervates would be repelled, it is attracted; likewise, when it ought be attracted, it is repelled. This phenomena is called rho‍-​deviance, and this makes it the premier combat enervate, able to easily punch through defenses. Furthermore, Rho‍-​nrv is most stable when it is highly saturated, and disperses when desaturated. Partly because of the high rest saturation, and partly because of parachemical quirks, rho‍-​nrv is very susceptible to iota‍-​calcination. Rho is a tectonically common enervate, occuring in spike fields and volcanoes.
• Iota‍-​nrv (d6): the product of epsilon fusion, iota‍-​nrv is heavier, forms stronger bonds, and its threshold is higher. Finally, it actually has cohesion. In fact, it has highly volatile interactions with other enervates, causing an autocatalyzing reactions that is often called iota‍-​calcination. Iota‍-​nrv is sometimes called burning nerve for how this reaction resembles fire.
• Kappa‍-​nrv (d6): decently cohesive and highly inductive, kappa‍-​nrv is a prime defensive enervate. It flows like water until it reaches and engulfs its target, and then clings tight, catching and attenuating any impacts or projectiles.
• Tau‍-​nrv (d6): an aggressively stable enervate. Tau‍-​nrv has the strongest cohesion response of any enervate, binding to itself incredibly tightly, enough that moderate force can cause fusion, releasing energy that rebounds violently against the impetus. Attempting to rip or pierce tau‍-​nrv meets extreme resistance. Even overcoming this can input enough energy oversaturated tau‍-​nrv, potentially decaying into more tau‍-​nrv. Sadly, tau‍-​nrv is inclined to settle into long, narrow forms, making it better for whips or rope than straightforward defenses.
• Upsilon‍-​nrv (d6): a complex product of an exacting chain of fusions, reactions and eductions, upsilon‍-​nrv is the shining jewel of umbral science, though it is just barely practical to create. Upsilon‍-​nrv has the unique property of “negative induction”: at any temperature, it repels matter. This has endless applications; perfect vacuums, blades with unparalleled ease at parting matter, the list extends. The most useful by far, and the hardest to understand, is “parallel spaces” which extend extradimensionally, without a lethal suffusion of enervation. Upsilon‍-​nrv is particularly confusing to behold, as at fringes light itself is repelled, bending around upsilon‍-​nrv, and making it appear somewhat smaller than it is.

Omicron‍-​nrv, the last great enervate, is excluded, and thus unusable in modern times.

There are many specialized varieties, the sort which occupy lectures that one dozes off to and forgets about. Eta‍-​, theta‍-​ and zeta‍-​nrv are examples, mainly of interest to those designing amalgam equipment, umbral devices or nerve circuits; they are neurophobic insulators, neurophilic conductors, and one semiconductor.

Psi‍-​nrv is another maligned variety. Its a family of molecules resembling neurotrasmitters and they disrupt brain function. They have escaped Vesperbane practice for two reasons: one, they are the discovery and domain of the Percipiency, who keep their recipes secret like much of what they do, and two, by the Free Will Accord, vespers are unlikely to condone their usage.

Next, Wau‍-​nrv (aka welkinflame), is the nightmare of every Vesperbane. It truly burns enervate as not even iota‍-​nrv will, reducing even dense delta‍-​nrv to nothing more than faint thermal radiation. Because all Vesperbanes are reliant on Umbral Techniques, wau‍-​nrv is debilitating. But for this same reason, only non‍-​Vesperbanes can wield it. Wau‍-​nrv is generally the province of the Vindicators, who possess most of the crystals that produce its precursors and the secret recipes for educting it.

Lastly, there is Omega‍-​nrv. Calculations based on the leading theories of umbral physics suggest that deep inside the moon there is a hard core made up of an enervate species significantly more dense than delta‍-​nrv ever could be. Dubbed ‘omega‍-​nrv’, but never observed, it’s believed to be the true product of delta‍-​nrv fusion, and achievable if and when the epsilon defect is ever overcome. Omicron‍-​nrv was a promising fusion catalyst that could have lead there, and then the Helldive Expedition happened.

(This document does not, and should not, discuss the myths of “mu‍-​nrv” or “lamba‍-​nrv”.)

Umbral Items

• Alpha Chamber: device for condensing ambient enervate. Requires and uses enervate. Mechanism (Dex) check or the device won’t work. Difficulty starts at 16. Ambient umbra subtracts from this, and each nerve dice invested subtracts its die class from this. On success, gain [power] beta‍-​nrv equal to skill power. Use once per rest.
• Alpha Diviner: device for locating enervate. Takes fuel. Requires and uses at least 1 nerve dice. Mechanism (Dex) check, Ambient umbra is the difficulty class, ‍-​[class] for each dice invested. Fires a dark stream of alpha‍-​nrv that curves toward the nearest, largest source of enervate.
• Beta Pump: device for fusing beta‍-​nrv. Requires beta‍-​nrv. Base 8 difficulty, +2 difficulty for each invested beta‍-​nrv. Mechanism (Str) check. Skill power is how many of the extra beta‍-​nrv become gamma‍-​nrv. Use once per rest.
• Nerve Crystal {beta,gamma,delta}: small chunk of a superheavy neurogenic metal. Comes with a d20 of enervate dice. Cannot be refilled.
• Umbral Vessel {S,M,L}: a soul, probably of a beetle or bat. Can store a {d6, d8, d12} nerve dice, and can be refilled.
• Soldier Pill {Weak, (Normal), Strong}: gain {4,8,12} energized. When you have none, gain exaustion for 1.

Ichor

The blood of vesperbats is restless.

Bats in general are known to have remarkably resilient immune systems, but vesperbats are a cut above, having fought and lost an evolutionary arms race against all manner of magical and mundane parasites

At the end of all that development, the blood of vesperbats is almost as much a danger to it as it is to that which would harm them. Almost.

Vesperbats are known to have extraordinary regeneration ‍— wounds torn open will visibly stitch themselves shut, sundered claws and limbs have been reattached mid‍-​battle, and a severed tail will have fruited wriggling stumps after just a quarter hour

But that which a bat cannot heal, that which would makes a vesperbat bleed, that is the true danger.

Vesperbat blood is restless, and that nature doesn’t change outside of their flesh ‍— rather, being outside the flesh unchains it. The blood has itself a mutagenic, regenerative nature. Pools of the vesperbat blood grow larger even when left untouched, and a slickness on the blade will reach out for its wielder.

And when the blood finds or entraps something living? There is a reason you never go for the jugular when fighting a vesperbat. The blood of vesperbats is hungry, and it will consume you.

Wounds should be cauterized, and spilt blood should be burnt. This is an imperative, even among the bats themselves. But if one fails this imperative? Most of the time, nothing happens…

But the blood is hungry, always hungry, and if it finds something to eat, it can grow and persist. It’s a blind, deaf, mute thing. But it can smell, better than anything else alive. And it is as effective as any slime mold.

A blood mass like this is evolution let unleashed. Every cell must do its part, fight for its own survival, or be replaced by one that does it better. A blood mass has stem cells, and all the genes of a vesperbat. Given enough time, it will remember how to construct bone, flesh, muscle, fat, nerve…

Even the bats fear a shoggoth.

There is but a single mercy. Vespers aren’t stored in the blood, and the bats’ magical gifts thus aren’t shed when they bleed. But it is known, the secret of every profane vesperbane, that all it takes to grow a vesper is bat blood upon a vespermalum…

Gods, if gods can hear, let an envespered shoggoth never appear.^note[You may recognize this passage; it later found its home in the post, In Dialogue With Plagues.]

Blood Dice

Ichor is liquid anatomy, blood endlessly mutating. It’s a strange brew teeming with stem cells, cancers, viruses, and the stolen genetics of a thousand species. Tamed and carefully cultivated, you have the common healing potion. Left to its own devices, you have the ambulatory tumour, a shoggoth.

Your ichor is represented as a pool of blood dice (dB). Your pool of blood dice is called your Heart.

• Heart Locus of ichor. Can store up to Biology (Con) blood dice. Each dice beyond this gives a wound: hypertension, injury equal to excess.

Unlike other usage dice, you do not control blood dice. You cannot aggregate or partition blood dice. You cannot remove blood dice, except with the help of specific effects and abilities. Blood dice exhaust differently than other usage dice as well; when a blood dice exhausts, take 1 internal damage. If a d4 blood dice exhausts, downgrade it to d1 instead of removing it. Blood dice can be consumed; this means exhausting it down to a d1.

Every long rest with ichor in your system means a Ichor Progression for each blood dice. You can resist any Ichor Progression by make a mutation save, a Biology check with the DC equal to the number of blood dice you have. Failure means rolling on the Ichor Progression table for each blood dice; success means the same, but you can reduce the number of rolls by [power].

Each time you gain a blood dice, roll Ichor Progressions.

Mutations are the price for working with bat blood. They’re usually negative, sometimes neutral, and rarely positive. You should have a big spot on your character sheet reserved for your mutation list.

Each mutation has a virulence, which determines how potent it is. A mutation can deteriorate, which decreases its level (by 1 if no amount is given). Oppositely, a mutation can proliferate, increasing its level by 1. Anything that targets a mutation must pass a check against the mutation’s virulence, plus the blood sum of the host.

There are a few keywords that modulate the behavior of mutations

• Immature: when you gain a mutation, it’s not necessarily permanent. You get at most three curing saves. Curing saves are biology checks, DC being your number of blood dice, [power] being how much to reduce the virulence of the mutation. After a failed curing save, the mutation is no long immature. Taking a long rest uses up a curing save without success or failure.
• Transmissible: This mutation can be removed and transferred without destroying it, through potions or techniques. When a mutation is transferred, deteriorate it.
• Voluntary: You may choose when to activate this mutation, and what to target with it. If the mutation targets another mutation, you still have to pass the biology check.
• Deteriorating: Every time this mutation takes effect, it deteriorates.
• Ephemeral: When an ephemeral mutation is deteriorating, it deteriorates every long rest instead of on use.
• Hyperactive: This mutation has its effect take place on combat time scales (e.g., ‘on rest’ conditions become ‘each round’). When you take short rest, hyperactive mutations stop being hyperactive.

A last note: plants and especially trees are resistant to all ichor manipulation and can only be destroyed by it, albeit effectively. This does not apply to cyanobacteria in general, or to other photosynthesizers.

(As per the Angiosperm Removal Initiative, any tree you cut down is worth 1 bp.)

Ichor Items

Unless specified, potions also roll ichor progressions daily, or when the contents are greatly disturbed.

• Potion of Mending ‍-​ gain a d1 blood dice and a voluntary cicatrix (1) mutation.
• Potion of Regeneration ( ({slight, minor, major, extreme}) ‍-​ gain a hyperactive, deteriorating regeneration mutation, virulence ({1, 2, 3, 4}). Gain a {d4, d6, d8, d12} blood die.
• Draught of Action ({slight, minor, major, extreme}) ‍-​ gain a voluntary, deteriorating mutant reflexes mutation, virulence ({1, 2, 3, 4}). Gain a {d4, d6, d8, d12} blood die.
• Ecdysis Injection: gain d1 blood die. Starting next long rest, begin molting. Takes 1 day, gives mending equal to half Stamina. Can mend severed limbs.
• Vial of Blood: contains a blood mass, still mutating, its die a {d1,d4,d6,d8}. If the dice reaches class 5, it bursts from the glass and becomes a shoggoth.
• Potion of Purging: for the next hour, vomit up blood. Lose all blood dice, taking internal damage equal to their highest face. Agonizing. (Wound: purging scars.)
• Vial of Living Poison: when ingested, DC 16 Biology (Con) save or be afflicted with hyperactive living poison and gain d4 blood dice. When splashed, DC 8 Biology (Con) save or the same.
• Ichor Incubator {S, M, L, XL}: store ichor. Can contain a blood dice (of at most a {d4, d6, d8, d12}) without any risk of mutation. Don’t look inside.
• Cytokine Injection: on injection, a mutation or affliction of your choice has no effect for the rest of the day. You gain one of these automatically if you start with a negative mutation.
• Powdered Cytokine: when added a potion, suppresses one ichor progression.

Vespers

The real star of the show. Generally thought of as magical spirits, vespers inhabit a vesperbane’s body and grant them control of umbra and ichor, via endowments, in exchange for service and protection.

You acquire vespers by performing the vesperbane rites, imbiding a vespermalum and a blood dice, and meditating. You can acquire the vespers of a newly dead bane by consuming their entrails in the process of haruphagein.

• Vespers: You start with at least two vespers. A vesper has an associated usage dice, and allows you have as many endowments as its dice class. Each vesper allows you to take as many endowments as its dice class.

Each vesper means an extra meal daily, or you lose access to its endowments.

Your vespers in total have three stats, but note that vespers are not mantids, and thus trying to pin them down with mantid terminology is a fraught endeavor.

• Arete: roughly, karma, or satiation, or devotion, or fungible cooperation, or inverted debt. The degree of equanimity or strife, not just between the vesper and bane, but between the vespers themselves, and within the vespers themselves. Starts equal to the number of vespers you have. Any time you make a skill check with Cogitation, you can wager Arete as bonus dice.
• Plasia: roughly, mutation, or structure or growth. Encompasses the vespers capacity for change, creation, and the cunning with which it undergoes such. Gain 1 Plasia for each d6 or d8 blood dice you have, gain 2 for each d12 or d20. Any time you make a Biology check, you can add up to Plasia many bonus dice, same rules as overexertion.
• Noesis: roughly sapience, understanding, or collaboration. Encompasses the vespers’ understanding of themselves, the host, the world, and this understanding itself. Gain one for each vespers you have at die class 5. Every point increases the size of the Arete and Plasia dice.

Endowments

A vesper knows expressions, which allows you to grow endowments, which allow you to cast techniques. An analogy: if the expression is the recipe, the endowment is the ingredients, and the technique is the meal.

(Alternatively, it’s just spell slots with extra steps.)

Expressions are listed as class templates in Part 3, but note that the ‘Vesperbane’ expressions is required.

Each endowment you take incurs a point of mutational debt, which must be paid off before the character is valid. A roll of the neutral mutations table removes 1 point, a roll on the negative mutations take removes 2 points. Starting with a d4 blood dice removes 1 point, and starting with a d8 blood dice removes 2. You can take the genetic defect condition at any level and remove that much debt.

Genetic defect: Condition. Whenever you gain a mutation, aggreive this.

• Aggrieve: Roll 1d20 against [level]. If it rolls under, proliferate or deteriorate a random mutation (whichever is worse).

Arete

Each vesper has caloric requirements which must be fulfilled for them to perform their functions. This means an extra meal for each vesper. For each vesper that goes unfed, you will lose access to as many endowments as its die class after a long rest, and you may lose Arete. If you feed all your vespers, you can also choose to provide your vespers with extra food, for a chance to gain Arete.

Arete can be wagered in some techniques. When you wager Arete, roll as many as you want. If any come up showing 1, all Arete Wagered is lost.x

Every long rest, roll 1d20. If it rolls under the sum of your vespers die classes (vesper sum), make a Cogitation check against that sum. If this check fails, your vesper are in a bad mood. If it succeeds, they are in a good mood. Bad mood means they will make a demand, which costs you Arete if you fail to fulfill it. Good mood means a request, which gains you Arete if you fulfil it. In both cases, consult the Vesper Mood table, and roll a die with class equal to that of your largest vespers.

If you reach Arete 0, you become Horkos, and your Arete cannot rise above 0. Each further loss of Arete will cause a vesper to become rogue, rescinding control of its endowments and using them to its whims. It must be fed, or it might sabotage you, especially if you fight another Vesperbane. Another Vesperbane can kill you and perform phagein to take your vespers, and your vespers would welcome moving on to a better host.

You can only alleviate your Horkos status by undertaking some massive menance.

Oaths of Blood and Soul

Envespers hosts can take oaths of blood and soul which are enforced by the vespers. Breaking an oath causes you to lose Arete. Some oaths grant Arete bonuses for adhering to them. See the list of oaths in part 3.

Death of Vespers

Vespers, like any creature, die. Their life cycle is much shorter than mantis or bat. Their associated die is a usage dice. Each long rest, roll it. Discards have no effect.

Part 3: Endowments and Techniques

A list of all class templates you can take. By default, you can take 5 of your choice. If you take a template multiple times, you get successive ranks of it. Here’s an example:

Example

An example class for illustration. This text gives a brief overview of what the class is about.

If something has a (!) after it, you must take it. If something has a (?) after it, it is to emphasize that it’s optional. If it has something after it, it’s also optional, although it’s assumed you’ll be taking it (you don’t have to have the +1 Strength, but it helps).

I

• Requires: these are conditions that must be met to take this rank in this class
• Expressions: these are other class templates unlocked by taking this rank
• Statistics: changes to attributes as a result of taking this rank.

II: second rank of this class. In order to take this, you must have the first rank.

• Endowment: endowments you can gain by taking this rank. See Example Endowment.
• Abilities: active abilities you gain from taking this rank. See example ability.
• Qualities: passive abilities you gain from taking this rank. See Example Quality.

Example Endowment: This is a description of and endowment. You must have rank II of this class in order to gain it.

• Example ability, Investigation (Ins), DC 2, rest action: Allows you to understand examples. To use this ability, roll an Investigation (Ins) skill check against DC 2. Gaining this ability consumes a technique slot.
• Example Quality: any time you see an example, you have a chance to understand it. This is a Quality, and does not consume technique slots.

Heartlands Mantis

All players should play a Heartlands Mantis, a genus of giant, sentient mantises. They’re about a meter long and stand anywhere between half a meter to a meter tall depending on how vertical their legs and thorax are. (Gamewise, medium size class).

Unlike most insects, mantids do not undergo any metamorphosis; nymphs are largely just smaller imagos. Notably, for winged mantids, only imagos have wings. Some species of Heartlands Mantis are winged, but all winged Heartlands mantids are brachypterous, meaning their wings are incapable of flight, and only cover about half their abdomen.

All mantids start with:

• Mantid grace: gain a rank in Strike, Acrobatics, and Sneak.
• Mantid forelegs: your forelegs are a spike‍-​lined vise. Start with Raptorial Forelegs as a natural weapon.
• Mantid acrobatics: You have a jumping action. As a minor action, you can hop 1 meter. As a major action, you can jump 2 meters. As a complete action, you can leap 3 meters.
• Mantid lunge: You can take a special complete action combining a leap and a major attack. Gain 1/3 of your Acrobatics in skill points for this action.
• Mantid Stillness: When sneaking, you can remain completely still. +1 natural Disguise.
• Chitinous Exoskeleton: Parts of your body are covered in chitin. Gain 1 natural armor, which yields the crushed chitin wound when broken. When gaining slashing wounds, reduce their level by 1.
• Thrill of the Hunt: When you eat live prey, gain 1d4 energize.

Heartlands mantids are most comfortable wielding weapons with their raptorial forelegs. These limbs are tipped with a tarsus like a long, thick finger, and also have the iconic folding, spike‍-​lined grip that earns them their name. Small, precise weapons (like daggers) are wielded with the tarsus, while larger, more conventional weapons are held in the spines, designed with a special handle the spines slot into. Heartlands mantids typically walk on their midlegs, but those legs have have three deft tarsi, including an opposable.

The upshot of this is that heartlands mantids can not only dual wield, but triple and quadruple wield. Albeit clumsily enough to not often be worth it.

• Multi Wield: When wielding more than two weapons, you must spend two action points, and so long as you wield them, your movement decreases by 1/4 per occupied leg. You can only wield 4 weaponss.

Vesperbane

The magical servants of the heartlands, masters of flesh and shadows, and bearers of pain and sacrifice.

Vespertheca, Endowment (DC 0): The vespers have accepted your service, and now reside within your body, within an organ in the lower abdomen, near your intestines. If this endowment is removed, gain a wound (vesperparasitism) for each vesper with injury equal to their die class.

Vesperbane duties, Quality: For each vesper you have, you must feed them one meal each day. (You do not gain satiation for these meals.) If you fail to feed any vespers, Cogitation (Ins) check against the sum of the unfed vespers’ die classes, or lose Arete.

You can choose to feed them more than necessary. If you do, check against Arete plus number of vesper, and roll a bonus die each extra meal. On success, gain [power] Arete.

Every long rest, roll 1d20. If it rolls under the sum of your vespers die classes, make a Cogitation check against that sum. If failure, your vesper are in a bad mood, else they are in a good mood. Bad mood means a demand, which costs you Arete if not fulfilled it. Good mood means a request, which grants Arete if fulfilled. In both cases, consult the Vesper Mood table, and roll a die with class equal to that of your largest vespers.

Heroic Ordinance, Quality: Under the laws of the heartlands, you may choose to place on anyone whose life you have saved under a heroic debt. It can be paid off for 1 ap, or by enrolling as a tribute in the wardens (who will reward you that 1 ap as commission). Heroic debt is inherited and can be paid by descendants. (This reflects the law of heroic exchange. Those who are saved must save others; those who ask for protection must themselves protect.)

Chi metabolism, Ability:

• Create. Long rest action. The next ration you eat doesn’t count as a meal, and you gain a Ud4 of chi‍-​nrv in place of satiation. You can create at most Cogitation many chi‍-​nrv per long rest.
• Consume. Action. Requires focus. You may use chi‍-​nrv to gain 1 energize, or exhaust it and gain 5 energize.

Arete withdrawl, Ability: Rest action: Sit in meditation and call upon your vespers. Wager Arete at most equal to your Noesis plus 1. Gain that many Ud4 chi‍-​nrv.

Endowment molding, Ability (rest action):

• Growth. Rest action. Biology (Ins). DC target + BdC. Select an imprinted endowment. Select a blood dice with die class at least the endowment’s difficulty. Biology (Ins) check with difficulty equal to blood die class plus endowment DC. On failure, roll an Ichor Reaction. On success, gain that endowment next long rest. Wager 1 Arete.
• Dissolution. Select an existing endowment. Make the same check with the same failure condition. On success, lose that endowment and count it as a meal.

Vesper imprinting, Ability: Rest action. Cogitation (Noe). DC target. Requires vespersign as a language. You must have access to a description of an expression. On success, that endowment is now ‘imprinted’, and thus moldable.

Vesper transcription, Ability: rest action. Cogitation (Noe). DC target. Select an imprinted endowment. On success, for the next hour you can produce a written description of that expression. This is a valuable thing. Wager Arete equal to DC.

Anamnesis, Ability:

• You may wager Noesis many Arete on knowledge skill checks as bonus dice.
• Memory. Rest action. Cogitation (Ins). DC target. Select a skill. On success, gain an experience point in that skill. Wager Arete for each vesper.

Vespertheca Mutations

1. Use one of your vesper’s die.
2. Blood Experimentation. Roll an [virulence] many Ichor Progressions whenever you roll on the vesper mood table. If it’s a good mood, you get a reroll for each vesper. If you make a mutation save, +[virulence] to DC.
3. Arete Corruption. On long rest, wager Arete equal to virulence. If Plasia exceeds virulence, deteriorate.
4. Blood Hunger. Injures for virulence. On long rest, aggrieve. When you gain a blood die, deteriorate.
5. Joyous Blood. Whenever a blood die increases in size, gain 1 Arete. Whenever a blood die decreases or is lost, lose Arete. Arete can now be used on Biology checks as bonus dice.
6. Inoculum. Injures for [virulence]. If this mutation reaches virulence 6, gain a d6 vesper.
7. Blood sentience. +1 Noesis for each d20 blood dice you have.
8. Increase the die class of one of your vespers.

Wardens

I

• Requires: a physical attribute (Con, Str, Dex) of at least 1
• Expressions: Nerve Affinity, Plaguespitters, Breath of Black Winds
• Equipment: a blackbronze weapon, mycoleather armor
• Attributes: +1 to a physical attribute, +2 to all physical skills, +1 to Technique & Biology, +2 a chosen skill

II

• Requires: a physical attribute of at least 2, loyalty to Wardens among your convictions
• Equipment: blackbronze armor
• Attributes: +1 to all physical skills, +1 to Technique & Biology, +1 a chosen skill.
• Qualities: Weapons training

III (battle‍-​queen)

• Requires: a physical attribute of at least 4, loyalty to Wardens as your highest conviction
• Equipment: shadowsteel weapon and armor
• Attributes: +1 to a physical attribute, +1 to all physical skills, +2 a chosen skill
• Qualities: +2 Weapons training

Weapons training: choose a type of weapon. +2 bonus when using that weapon. stances? (aggressive, defensive, graceful, wild)

Stewartry

I

• Requires: a mental attribute (Cmp, Att, Ins) of at least 1
• Expressions: Nerve Affinity, Haruspex, Haemotechnics, Dwimmercrafty, Catalyst
• Attributes: +2 to a mental attribute, ‍-​1 to a physical attribute, +1 to all practical skills, +3 to all knowledge skills, +2 a chosen skill

II

• Requires: a mental attribute (Cmp, Att, Ins) of at least 3

III (Sovran)

• Requires: a mental attribute (Cmp, Att, Ins) of at least 5
• Attributes: ‍-​1 Defec

Sustained Casting, Ability. Whenever you cast an umbral technique, you can choose to sustain it. Successfully sustained techniques roll their nerve dice, but do not take effect. While sustaining a technique, you can spend a Technique action point to reroll any of the nerve dice, or spend a point to release the technique and let it take effect. You cannot cast other techniques while sustaining a technique. If you lose focus while sustaining a technique, the technique fails; take umbral damage from each nerve dice invested.

• Rank II: You can release technique as a reaction.
• Rank III: While sustaining a technique, you can cast another.

Practiced Casting. Ability. Trait. Choose up to [rank] techniques. These technique require 1 less focus. When you cast them with excess focus, gain one a success for each point of focus.

Casting Trance. Ability. Trait. When you cast a technique successfully, you can spend a success to take a bonus concentrate action.

Deep Focus. Ability Trait. When you gain fatigue, lose 1 point of focus instead of all of them.

Umbral Control, Ability. Whenever you cast an umbral technique, you can exchange a success to change the face value of a nerve dice by 1.

Umbral Powerhouse, Ability. Whenever you cast an umbral technique, you can exchange a success to get a bonus nerve dice. Use enervate; if discarded or exhausted, take 1 fatigue.

Maverick

TODO

Wretched Raptorials

I

• Requires: Vesperbane
• Endowments: Wretched Raptorials
• Techniques: Raptorial Onslaught

II

• Requires: Wardens
• Endowments: Metaraptorials
• Techniques:

III

Wretched Raptorials, Endowment: The ultimate predatory weapon; supernumary limbs to pierce and rend flesh. These raptorials are shaped like wet red tentacles lined with bony spikes. This endowment can be gained multiple times; each time you gain a new raptorial. Raptorials withdraw into the thorax, and can be readied with a minor action.

Raptorial Onslaught, Action: Strike (Pla) action. Makes an attack for each bonus point or each raptorial you have (maximum).

Red Raptorial (DC 3): The refinement of the Wretched Raptorial; one of the six somatic techniques. A long tentacle visibly lined muscle and with gnarled spikes. Each one allows a long‍-​reach melee attack dealing 1d6 piercing damage, plus Plasia modifier.

• Red Umbra: For the purposes of Nerve Strike, Your Raptorials can take take as many nerve dice as your Plasia modifier.
• Vesperly Might: so long as you can use a Raptorial, you can take your Plasia modifier in place of your strength modifier whenever it is higher.
• Vesperly Precision: so long as you can use a Wretched Raptorial, you can take your Plasia modifier in place of your Dexterity modifier whenever it is higher.

Red Blade (DC 2): as Red Raptorial, but with long, serrated projections. Deals 1d6 slashing damage.

Red Shield (DC 2): as Red Raptorial, but is a broad, bony appendage dealing. 1d4‍-​1 blunt damage. Can be used as a shield.

Red Spines (DC 2): as Red Raptorial, but spines are thinner and can be fired as projectiles. Has a 1d6 ‘spines’ Ammo Dice (max 2 for each Red Spines you have).

• Spine Regrowth, Biology, DC 2: Consume bones, chitin, coral or limestone. Regain a spines Ammo Dice. Or, once per long rest, refill all your spines slots for free, provided you’ve eaten all meals.

Red Tendrils (DC 2): as Red Raptorial, but is instead several long, thin and sticky tentacles. Can grapple enemies, and deal 1d6 constriction damage while grappled. Deals 1 damage otherwise. 

Umbral Meridians

The vespers have threaded your body with enervate‍-​conducting tissue, allowing you to direct and manipulate it.

I

• Requires: Technique of at least 1
• Endowments: Umbral Channels, Umbral Sheaths
• Statistics: +2 Technique
• Abilities: Nerve strike, nerve missile, nerve guard, nerve siphon, nerve discharge

II

• Requires: Technique of at least 4
• Endowments: Antlia, Soul Augments, Neuroceptors
• Attributes: +2 Technique
• Techniques: Nerve nurst, nerve surge, nerve ward,

III

• Requires: Technique of at least 7
• Endowments: Neurokinetic channels, Gamma Sentinae
• Attributes: +1 Technique

Umbral Sheaths (DC 2): a layer of enervate‍-​resistant tissue. +[rank] umbral armor. Your chitin has +[rank] imbuement.

• Nerve guard, DC 2 + [nerve]: resist kinetic and Umbral damage. Fill [nerve] imbuement slots (don’t roll).
  • Block. DC 2. Defense. Automatic. When you receive kinetic damage, roll [nerve] against the source’s power. Each success negates damage. Each failure exhausts the imbued die.
• Silent step, DC 1: muffle your footsteps. Only requires 1 dice. Can be applied to other object (jangling armor, say).
• Wallclimb, DC 2: stick to a surface with enervate. Could damage the surface. Discard on 1.
• Nerve ward, DC 4: briefly repel enervated objects. Requires chi‍-​nrv. Affects targets up to [effect] meters away. If the object is moving toward you (e.g., weapon, projectile) it will be stopped, or at [effect] 1 you can reverse its course. If contested, 1d6 + [effect] vs. target’s 1d6 + Str. Effect can persist for more than a turn; roll usage each turn. Can be used as a reaction. If nerve guard is already up, any of its dice can be used for 1 point.
• Nerve phare, DC 4: briefly draw enervated objects toward you. As nerve ward, but attractive.

Umbral Channels: special outlets for conducting enervate.

• Nerve Strike, DC 2: deliver umbral damage. Your weapon is imbued with the effect dice invested, and your next Strike attack deals [effect] umbral damage. Roll the nerve dice on each hit, and discard 1s. If this exhausts, add an extra point of umbral damage. If the target has an active nerve guards, gain a to hit modifier equal to [sum], plus how many dice are in their guard or phare. If they have an active nerve ward, increase their defense by this much instead. If [sum] exceeds the weapons imbuement, it will be damaged.
• Nerve thrust, DC 3: augment your blows with umbral force. Uses chi‍-​nrv. Your next strike deals [effect] extra kinetic damage. For each exhaust, deal an extra [power] damage.
• Nerve missile, DC 4: fire a short range umbral projectile. Deals [sum] kinetic damage and [effect] umbral damage. Effective range is between 2 meters plus [effect] and 6 meters plus [effect]. Discard 1s. Fired with an Aim action.
• Nerve burst, DC 6: create an enervate‍-​repulsive explosion. Uses chi‍-​nrv. Deals [sum] kinetic damage, and [dice] umbral damage. Range is 1 + [effect] to 2 + [effect] meters. Cannot be evaded. Discard 1s and 2s, exhaust [high]s and [high]‍-​1s. Each discard is a failure; take a point of umbral damage. For each exhaust, you can knock the target back up to that many meters. Fired with an Aim action.
• Nerve surge, DC 4: move at great speed. Requires chi‍-​nrv. Can move [effect] meters straight. Each discard is a failure and you must chose: a) discard the dice, and move one meter less, b) exhaust the dice and power through, c) keep the dice and move in a random direction. Simultaneous Coordination check against the distance or be staggered.
• Nerve siphon, DC 1: extract enervate from an outside source. Regain up to as many dice are in source. Must be a full action. Extract 1 dice, or 2 dice and take umbral damage.
• Nerve discharge, DC 1, full action: imbue any object with enervation. Target must be stationary or restrained. Deals umbral damage equal to die class for each dice each turn. Dice are discarded if the target saves out of the damage.
• Alpha divination, DC 2: locates enervate sources. Requires chi‍-​nrv. Emits a dark stream that will curve towards any nearby enervate sources.

Umbral Antliae (DC 4): a transformer which condenses and readies soul‍-​bound enervate, like an umbral heart or mitochondria. Any number of nerve dice can be cast from the antliae for 1 skill point. Gain this endowment multiple times to increase Antlia capacity by 2 each time (starts at 2). If you rest with dice in your antlia, take umbral damage equal to their class for each.

• Nerve withdrawl: ready your enervate. Draw a nerve die out of your soul and into your antlia.
• Nerve relaxation, rest action: return any dice from your Antlia to your soul.

Gamma Sentinae (DC 4): a pump‍-​like organ for compressing beta‍-​nrv

• Gamma molding, Technique, DC 4: choose a beta‍-​nrv base die. That die is lost. Up to [power] many beta‍-​nrv dice can be turned to gamma‍-​nrv (d12) dice.

Umbral Spike (DC 3): a spike rising from your abdomen which can conduct enervate.

• Alpha condensation, Technique, DC 4: as Alpha Chamber.

Neurokinetic Meridians (DC 5): an augmented umbral system laced with advanced amalgams for precise, long‍-​range control. Gain 1 umbral insulation. Gain 1 umbral armor. Increase these values if the endowment is taken multiple times.

• Neurokinetic Channels, Quality: Replaces Umbral Channels. Whenever you cast a technique from Umbral Channels, you can use Technique as the governing skill instead place of Strike, Aim or Coordination where they are used.
• Kinetic Control, Quality: All Umbral Channels techniques have their maximum effective ranges doubled. Tripled if this is gained twice.
• Telekinesis, Technique, DC 4: move objects. An imbued target can be moved from up to 2 meters away per dice, and weigh at most 20 kilos per dice. If the object is imbued, treat the dice imbuing it as part of this calculation. It can be moved up to [effect] meters. Umbral Insulation instead subtracts from [effect]. Object must be along a line of force extending from one of your umbral channels.
• Metakinesis, Quality: your lines of force can intersect other lines of force. By investing a skill point, telekinesis’s line of force can turn once at any angle. Techniques that create projectiles, such as nerve missile or nerve burst can also turn mid‍-​flight by investing another skill point.

Neurovoyent (DC 2): your umbral system is highly attuned and sensitive to external enervate. Your head is lined with neuroceptors.

• Umbral Awareness. As long as you have enervate in your soul, you can always tell the precise Ambient Umbra of any area you enter.
• Umbral Perception. As long as you have enervate in your soul, you can sense the number and nature of thing’s enervate if it has 1 or less umbral insulation. If it has 2, you can see the number. If it has 3, you can only vaguely detect it. Otherwise it is imperceptible to this sense. If you take this endowment a second time, increase these values by one.

  Haemotechnics Ichorcoel, DC 3: A special inner cavity for storing Ichor. Each one can store a blood die without ichor reactions, and gives you a +2 bonus the long rest mutation check.

Ichorcaminus, DC 5: a controlled environment for Ichor experimentation, located near the stomach.

• Blood molding, DC 3: Choose a blood die. Biology (Ins) check, penalty equal to the die class. If successful, grants bonus many rerolls on your next ichor reaction. Roll an ichor reaction.
• Blood absolution, DC 5: Choose a blood die. Biology (Ins) check, bonus can’t be larger than the die. On success, remove a mutation with virulence not higher than the bonus, and take that much damage.
• Blood memory: whenever you gain a Mutation, you can retain that mutation as a blood memory. Blood molding can use the memory instead of rolling an ichor reaction. Can have as many blood memories as your Plasia.

Rhizoneedles: hollow, needle‍-​like appendages sprouting from your tarsi which can pierce and inject Ichor. Also allows formation of Rhizoscalpels, small, precise blades.

• Rhizoinjection, DC 4: inject ichor. Gives the target blood dice or a transferible mutations
• Rhizosurgery, DC 6: cast medical techniques that normally affect yourself, like blood molding or endowment molding, with a ‍-​1 penalty for each blood dice used.

  mutations

• exocirculatory: thick veins crawl across your cuticle, bloated with ichor. whenever you take kinetic damage that is not a multiple of [virulence], gain 1 bleeding.

Plaguespitter

The ancient art of weaponized ichor, older than vesperbanes.

Biliary Sac, DC 2: an organ filled with vile, diseased blood. Located on the thorax, visibly bulges when full. Stores plague dice, has capacity equal to Biology plus Con modifier.

• Vile blood, DC 2: Once per rest, you can convert blood dice to a plague dice of one class smaller. Once per long rest, you can produce a plague dice if you have eaten all meals.
• Vile accretion: Any time you would gain a negative mutation and have free space in this sac, you can choose instead to store it as bile, provided its virulence does not exceed your biology proficiency, converting a blood die to a plague die.
• Plague vomit, DC 2, +2 Aim (Pla): Takes plague dice. Spew bile up to [dice] meters, dealing [class] damage or each die. Choose a mutation in your Biliary Sac to apply. This attack cannot be blocked. If the attack succeeds, target makes a Biology save against[sum]. 1s discard and decrease the die class. [high]s exhaust the die (and you lose the mutation), but the target must pass another save.
• Vile brew, Biology, DC 4, rest action: A mutation in your Biliary Sac can be replicated, consuming a blood die; gain copies equal to the class of the Die spent, provided it does not exceed your Biology proficiency. Add mutation virulence to the DC, and the class of the die used.
• Vile mixture, Biology, DC 4: Choose two mutations in your Biliary Sac. They are now one mutation applying both effects, with virulence equal to highest. ‍-​[class] penalty for both Dice. (Rest Action)
• Living venom: as a rest action, you can activate vile accretion as though you had gained the living poison affliction with virulence one less than Biology.

Mutations

2. Billary leakage. Bile seeps through your body. Whenever you use vile accretion to store a mutation, gain that mutation with [level] equal to this.
3. Billary slime. You’re coated in poisonous waste. Whenever organic maatter touches you, it gains the effect of one of your billary mutations. If voluntary, pick the mutation.
7. Blood and Bile. Your billary sac can store ichor. Blood dice stored this way do not occupy ichor slots. Every long rest, a stored mutation becomes latent within the blood.

Pustules, DC 3: abnormal growths bloated with Ichor.

• Pustule formation, Biology, DC 2: Any time you would gain a positive mutation, you can instead grow a pustule to store it, gaining the effect when it is popped.
• Pustule drainage, Biology, DC 1: drain a pustule. The liquid confers the mutation when drunk, and can be stored in the vessel of your choosing
• Pustule Popping: whenever you take kinetic damage, if the damage is not a multiple of your number of pustules, one of your pustules pops, contents wasted.

Breath of Black Winds

Nitrogen Sentinae: your umbral system can tune induction to affect only nitrogen, granting you ability to control umbra‍-​imbued air.

• Nerve mist, Technique, DC 2: fill the air with a diffuse fog of enervation. Area in a [dice] meter radius is lightly misted with enervate. Exhaust [high]s. Any creatures within must save against an umbral dread effect or be terrified. Mist lasts for [sum] turns, then disperses. The mist can be siphoned, otherwise the dice are discarded.
• Nerve cloud, Technique, DC 4: suffuse the air a dense fog of enervation. Fill [dice] square meters with enervate. Filled areas must be adjacent. Exhaust [high]s. Any creatures or objects within must take 1 umbral damage per turn. Becomes Nerve Mist in [sum] turns. Nerve mist disperses in [sum] turns.
• Choking breeze, Technique, DC 5: target is wreathed in suffocating black winds. Con save or [dice] umbral damage. Unconscious in 1d6+2 turns.
• Wuthering ring: fire a stable, ring‍-​shaped vortex of air that deals [dice] umbral damage, and kinetic damage equal to highest roll. Simultaneous Aim roll. More dice increase the size of the ring, adding a bonus to the Aim.
• Withering force, DC 2, Technique: force target to move back [dice] meters.
• Black whirlwind, DC 5, Technique: target is immobilized by a swirling vortex of air. Deals [dice] umbral damage, and target takes [dice] kinetic damage each turn until the target escapes, Coordination check against [sum]. ‍-​[dice] penalty to all rolls the target makes involving Str or Dex.

Dwimmercrafty

The art of using vespers to craft and enchant objects

Rhizogrowth, DC 1: create banemud, banestone, and mycoleather. You have d8 rhizo dice equal to the sum of your vesper’s die classes. Once per day, you can create a rhizo dice by eating an extra meal or spending Arete.

• Mudcraft, Cogitation, DC 1: select a volume of dirt. Spent a short rest preparing it and shaping it to the desired form. Takes 1 hour per 10 kilograms divided by rhizo dice invested, plus 12 minus Cogitation. Then the dirt becomes magemud, hard and sturdy like a softwood.

➢ Shape earth, Cogitation, DC 4: coarsely manipulate dirt with rhizomorphs. It takes a major action to place a rhizo dice into dirt, or to remove it. Rhizo dice placed this way allows manipulating a kilogram of dirt. After manipulating, roll the rhizodice, discarding on 1, exhausting on 8. Maintaining anything more complex than a hole or mound requires remaining in contact and a minor action each round. As a full action, a rhizomorph can tunnel 1 meter. If a rhizo dice is left in fertile ground for four hours, the soil is drained of nutrients and you gain 1d4 rhizo dice.

• Stonecraft, Cogitation, DC 3: ‍-​ as mudcraft, but requires powered limestone, shattered bones, or crushed coral, and takes twice as long.

➢ Shape stone, Cogitation DC 8: over the course of a short rest, your rhizomorphs can tunnel through stone. Creates piles of gravel, can go Cogitation meters per hour per rhizo dice. Roll the dice invested, discarding 1, exhausting on 8. Dice discarded this way cannot be used until long rest.

• Leathercraft, Cogitation, DC 2: as mudcraft but result is mycoleather, tough and flexible, and this is ideally done with collagen (i.e., flesh).

Vespercyst, DC 1 (1): create magical artifacts or golems

• Enchantment, DC 4: as mudcraft, stonecraft or leathercraft, but you must lose at least 1 vesper and its endowments, 1 blood dice, and 1 Arete. The enchanted object retains some ability to use the endowment’s techniques on command. Requires 1 chi‍-​nrv for a day’s use, on top of any technique requirements.
• Golem (5 Cog) ‍-​ as enchantment, but the object can be designed to be motile, and requires an additional chi‍-​nrv daily.

Catalyst

Your body has become a walking chemical experiment

Chemical Metabolism ‍-​ each time you eat a ration, you can produce one liter of any of the following chemicals.

• Ngini’s Light, DC 1: a liter of two chemicals, a luciferin and luciferase. When mixed, produces light. Duration depends on intensity. As sunlight ‍-​ one hour. As torch: four hours. As candle: eight hours. As a glowbug: sixteen hours.
• Tsuboc Oil, DC 2: an amalgam oil which burns extremely hot. When ignited and thrown, rolled 1d4. Deals that in burning damage each turn for 2d4 turns or until put out. Fumble and it lands on you.
• Acidic Slime, DC 2: a vicious acid that eats through armor. Target loses 1d4 armor class and takes 1d4 acidic damage.
• Pallik Salve, DC 3: when applied to a wound, ignore its stamina penalty until long rest.
• Liquid Smog, DC 1: when left exposed to air, creates a thick, heavy cloud of opaque smoke. Creatures that enter can’t breathe and leave coughing

Haruspex

You worship and adore the vespers and your devotion has granted you influence among them.

Harusign‍-​ a fist sized object, adorned with the alien glyphs and strange smells of the vespers’ osmotactic script. This is the locus of the haruspex’s power, and must be guarded carefully.

• Vesper’s favor, Quality: Unless specified, these techniques require the favor of your vespers. Favor is gained when you give extra meals, and lost if you lose any Arete.
• Vesper’s listener, Quality: whenever a bane’s vespers are in a mood, if you’re able to touch that vesperbane, you can determine what they desire. You always know what your own vespers desire.
• Vesper’s grace, Quality: if you would ever become horkos, dissolve your harusign and gain 1 Arete. You do not become horkos.
• Folly of the Haruspex, Quality: if your harusign is taken, it can be damaged to erode your Arete. If it is destroyed, you are no longer a Haruspex.
• Vesper’s blessing Cogitation, DC 1: target gains 1 Arete. You must make an Arete save against vespers or lose 1 Arete. This can be done once for each extra meal your vespers have received. Target cannot be you.
• Vesper’s malediction, Cogitation, DC 1: target loses 1 Arete. You must make an Arete save or lose 1 Arete.
• Vesper’s proscription, Cogitation DC 2: lose up to bonus many Arete, and roll them as Arete dice. For [sum] many turns, target’s vespers rescind control. They may use no active techniques.
• Vesper’s hesitance, Cogitation (Are): wager an amount of Arete. Arete save with penalty of that amount. If it passes, target takes a debuff of that amount to a stat of your choice. If it fails, lose the wagered Arete.
• Vesper’s eagerness Cogitation (Are): as vesper’s hesitance, but targets instead gains a buff.
• Vesper’s burden: if target has lost Arete today, that loss is absolved. You lose that amount of Arete instead.
• Vesper’s wrath,DC 2, Cogitation: your next strike is guided by your vespers. Roll Arete in place of skill dice.
• Harusacrifice: lose 1 Stamina and roll an Arete dice. Cogitation save, and regain favor on success.

Biogalvanics

Conductive meridians: your body is threaded with metallic wires that conduct electricity. All electric attacks are reduced to 1 damage. Metallic chitin: harden your chitin with metal. Gain 1 armor class for each rank of this. Unarmed attacks can deal an extra point of damage. Galvanic Cell: you’ve grown a chemical battery in your abdomen. Every time you eat a meal, you can gain 1d4 Charge Die.

• Galvanic discharge: on an unarmed strike, roll a Charge Die in addition, which deals electric damage.

Electron sentinae: you can tune enervate’s induction to apply to only electrons. Any umbral technique can be cast with charge dice where this makes sense, allowing attacks to deal electrical damage.

Mutations 1 Malfunctioning Cell. Your Galvanic Cell is damaged. If you have charge dice in you when you rest, take damage equal to virulence. 2 Hardened. You are immobilized by your Metallic Chitin. Reduce your evasion by virulence. Reduce your movement speed by half of virulence. Every three points of virulence, take one less action each turn. Increase armor by virulence. Losing these armor points still confers wounds, but also temporarily reduces virulence. 3 Electrified. Your Metallic Chitin courses with static electricity. Anything that touches you roll 1d8, taking a point of electrical damage if it rolls under Virulence. 4 Electroumbral. Your Conducive Meridians are overtaking your Umbral Merdians. Every umbral technique requires charge dice. 5

Umbral Summoner

You’ve studied the art of forming constructs with pure enervate.

Orb conjuration: Technique (Ins). DC 2 + [nerve] + orb DC. Create a floating orb with [nerve] dice. Each invested dice lasts ?dN before evoking the orb and decaying. An orb lasts disappeared until all its invested dice have been evoked.

• Orb manipulation: If you’re within touch reach of an orb, you can direct it to orbit around you, remain stationary, or float off in a certain direction.
• Orb evocation: As a manipulation, orbs can be evoked to activate their active ability.

Destruction orb Condesation orb Synthesis orb Mosquito orb Explosion orb

Lists

Statuses

• Bleeding: Whenever you take an exertion, take [level] damage.
• Pain: Roll 1d12 under Composure or take damage.
• Staggered: reroll initiative twice, take lowest. Lose all actions and reactions. At the start of your turn, lose all actions and reaction and lose this effect.
• Dazed: At the start of your turn, lose a minor action, a minor reaction and a level of this effect. Can take a minor action to lose another level.
• Energized: At the start of your next turn, lose 1 fatigue and a level of this effect. When Fatigue is 0, lose this effect and gain the vigor condition. If you take damage this turn, lose 1 energized. If you have 0 energized, remove this effect.
• Seizure
• Shakes

Vigor: +2 Initiative per [level]. While active, +1 Evasion. As a free action, take advantage on your next exertion, and reduce the level of this by one. While active, if you would take damage, remove this effect instead. If you have no levels of this, remove the effect.

Wounds

• Gash: Wound left by a blade. When open, applies [injury] bleeding for 1d6 turns.
• Bruise: The wound left by a bludgeoning weapon. When you take kinetic damage, take another point of damage. On long rest, mend for
• Puncture: A deep wound left by a piercing weapon. When opened, applies 1 bleeding.
• Burn: Wound left by fire. When open, take 1 damage each turn if you’re wearing anything on the burned region. When closed, take 1 damage each rest if you’re wearing anything on the burned region.
• Fracture: Wound left by a heavy strike. when open, if limb, take [injury] damage each time limb is used, and take disadvantage on that action. When closed, only take disadvantage. If limb, actions taken with it aggrieves if 1d12 under [injury].
• Shattered: Wound left by a powerful strike. If limb, it unusable when open. When closed, as an open fracture.
• Severed: Limb is unusable. Cannot be healed unless specified. When open, apply bleeding.
• Tumor: A cancerous growth. Whenever this wound would be mended, increase [injury] instead.
• Hypertension: Too much ichor. When you make a mutation save, take damage equal to severity.
• Purging Scars: Wound left by the red purge. Whenever you eat, take 1 damage. Aggrieved if you eat something containing ichor.

Weapon Templates

Todo: add more.

1. Melee

   Mantid Raptorials: the natural weapons of the heartlands mantis.

   • Damage: 2d4 + [power], piercing.
   • Reach: short.
   • Special: at power 2, successful strikes allow you to restrain medium size or smaller opponents in a vise‍-​like grip, dealing a point of constricting damage each turn.

   Sword: a reliable blade, wardens standard.

   • Damage: 3d6 ‍-​ 1 + [power], slashing. Staggers at power 3.
   • Reach: normal
   • Special: +1 to parry. At power 1 or higher, can make a long‍-​stab attack that instead deals 1d4 + [power] piercing damage.

   Axe

   • Damage: 1d4 + 2[power], slashing. Staggers at power 2.
   • Reach: normal
   • Special: adjustable grip. Reach can be shortened with a free action, cutting damage down to 1d4+[power].

   Spear: description

   • Damage: 1d4 + [power].
   • Reach: long
   • Special: ‍-​1 to hit.

   Name: description

   • Damage:
   • Reach:
   • Special

   Weapons can be made of different materials, which affect their stats.

   Material Effect Copper Default Blackbronze 1 imbuement, +1 damage, 2x price Iron +2 damage, +1 skill limit, 1.5x price Shadowsteel 2 imbuement, +3 damage, +1 skill limit, 3x price

2. Ranged

   Bows:

   • Damage: [power]d6, pick highest, add [mod]. Piercing damage.
   • Range: 10‍-​30 meters, expands by 2 per [power].
   • Usage: 1. Skill limit: 10
   • Special: takes Str, rather than Dex. Ammo is arrows. At power 3, can shoot a volley of arrows, exhausting an ammo die.
   • Price: 1 bp for the bow, {20, 50, 90, 150} cp per {d4, d6, d8, d12} ammo dice (arrows).

   Throwing knives:

   • Damage: 1d4 + [power] + [mod]. Piercing damage.
   • Range: 3‍-​8+[power] meters.
   • Usage: 0. Skill limit: 5
   • Special: can be usaged as a melee weapon.
   • Price: {8, 20, 36, 50} cp per {d4, d6, d8, d12} ammo dice.

   Throwing stars:

   • Damage: [power]d4 + [mod]. Slashing damage.
   • Range: 3‍-​8+[power] meters.
   • Usage: 0.
   • Skill limit: 5
   • Special: Discard if ammo dice rolls under power, or at/over [high]‍-​[power].

   Throwing needles

   • Damage: 1
   • Range: 2‍-​5+[power]
   • Usage: 1.
   • Skill limit: none
   • Special: Sneaky. If 1d8 + Ins + [power] rolls over the target’s perception, they do not anticipate the attack.

   Chakram: A circular disc with a knife’s edge and an airfoil design.

   • Damage: 1d8 + [power] slashing.
   • Range: 3‍-​8 + [power]
   • Usage: 1
   • Skill limit: 5
   • Special: discard rolls below 4. Add [power] to skill rolls.

Tables

TODO: fill in the item tables Adventuring Gear

Equipment Table

Vesperbane Gear

Interference Effects

Roll. Result:

1. Tolerance. Casting errors accounted for; no effect.
2. Attenuation. No dice count towards [dice] or [sum], and ‍-​[extra] to resulting [sum].
3. Complication. The umbral system is overloaded. Roll one of the dice; whatever number comes up is cursed, causing an Interference every time you roll it, till short rest. That interference has a bonus of at least [extra].
4. Overflow. Too much poured into the spell. If there are up to 1+[extra] spare Umbral Dice, roll them and add the to the spell. Else take Umbral Damage for each not rolled.
5. Mishap. Discard dice. Agony for 1 turn plus [extra].
6. Fusion. Exhaust dice without decay. Gain 1 Gamma (d12) dice for each exhausted, except the first.
7. Burst. Discard dice. Damage to endowments involved in casting until short rest.
8. Outburst. Exhaust all the technique’s dice. Ambient umbra increases in a great outpouring of nerve, which can be sensed by most umbral creatures.
9. Fissure. Exhaust dice. ‍-​1 to Soul capacity until short rest.
10. Explosion. Exhaust interfering dice. Nearby enervated creatures and objects are flung backwards
11. Pressure. Can’t use more than 1 dice per technique until short rest.
12. Heavy Fusion. Exhaust all dice without decay. Gain 1 delta‍-​nrv (d20).
13. Obstruction. No techniques may be cast until short rest.
14. Malfunction. Gain umbral wound.
15. Suckage. Ambient enervate is sucked toward you. Take damage equal to ambient umbra and umbral damage equal to ambient umbral modifier.
16. Rupture. Permanent damage to umbral endowments involved in casting. Take [extra] umbral damage.
17. Shatter. Permanent ‍-​1 to soul. Gain [extra] umbral damage.
18. Implosion. Nearby enervate sources are pulled toward you. Take [extra] damage and [extra] umbral damage.
19. Leakage. Gain 1+[extra] umbral wounds. Discard dice.
20. Overload. All dice in your Soul or Antliae are added to the technique. Exhaust all dice, no decay.

Ichor Reactions

All mutations are rolled with the same dice, and start at virulence equal to its die class. If the highest face is rolled on a dice smaller than d20, ignore this table and increase its size.

1. Apoptosis. Consume for 1.
2. Homeostasis. Nothing happens.
3. Neoplasia. Gain a neutral mutation.
4. Dysplasia. Gain a negative mutation.
5. Hyperplasia. Gain a neutral mutation. Gain a d1 blood dice.
6. Necrosis. Gain a negative mutation. Next roll doesn’t happen. If last roll, consume for 1.
7. Cytokine. Consume largest blood die for 1.
8. Coagulation. Gain a positive mutation.
9. Metaplasia. Gain a neutral mutation. Roll another blood die.
10. Macrophage. Consume your smallest die. Increase die class by what was consumed.
11. Infection. Gain an affliction.
12. Steroid. Gain a positive mutation. Increase the class of one blood die.
13. Stigmergy. Roll again. All subsequent rolls have the same effect.
14. Homeostasis. Nothing happens.
15. Mitogen. Gain a positive mutation.
16. Virulent. Gain a negative mutation. Reroll this die for additional effect.
17. Biofilm. Pick another dice and roll it. Effect happens twice.
18. Malignant. Gain two negative mutations. Gain d4 Ichor Dice.
19. Metastasis. Increase all blood dice by 1 class. No other rolls happen.
20. Palingenesis. Consume this dice. Gain 3 d4 Ichor Dice. Roll all of them.

Positive Mutations

1. Benign growth. No effect.
2. Cicatrix. Mend for at most [level]; deteriorate for that same amount.
3. Gain a positive endowment mutation.
4. Glamour. You’ve become more attractive. On (4d6) Impression rolls, take the highest dice in place of the second highest. If Impression is still less than [level], +1 Impression.
5. Sharper Senses. (1d4: sight, hearing, smell, touch); +[level] Perception.
6. Transfer. One of your mutations becomes transmissible; deteriorate.
7. Cleanse. Decrease virulence of another (negative) mutation; deteriorate.
8. Hypertrophy. +1 to [level] random core attributes.
9. Cytokine. One of your mutations has no effect until next long rest; deteriorate.
10. Control. One of your mutations (level at most [level]) becomes voluntary; deteriorate.
11. Antumbra. Enervated blood. Consume a blood dice by 1, and gain a d4 nerve dice; deteriorate.
12. Adriotness. Your muscles respond in strange ways. Gain ranks in [level] random physical skills
13. Euplasia. Increase the effective level of a (positive) mutation by [level]; its level cannot exceed [level]; when using the level of this or the target mutation, use the sum of both.
14. Augmented metabolism. Require 1 less meal each day. If you go a day without meeting your caloric requirements, deteriorate.
15. Regeneration. Gain [level] stamina each short rest. If you have an open wound, close it, mend 1, and deteriorate. When hyperactive, only 1 stamina is gained each round.
16. Resistance. When you gain a (negative) mutation, deteriorate it; deteriorate.
17. Oncophage. Remove a tumor of level at most [level]; deteriorate [level].
18. Stability. When another mutation would deteriorate, deteriorate this instead.
19. Mutant reflexes. Increase your evasion by [level]. As a free action, you may activate this mutation and gain up to [level] bonus minor actions; take 1 damage for each minor action taken this way. For the purposes of status effects, each complete bonus action counts as a new turn.
20. Toughness. For the purpose of fatigue, treat your stamina as higher by [level].
21. Energetic. The energized status effect takes place [level] many times each round.

Neutral Mutations

TODO: improve this table

1. Benign growth. Does nothing.
2. Gain a wound of severity 0.
3. Gain a neutral endowment mutation.
5. Increase virulence of a random mutation, otherwise gain benign.
7. Odd cicatrix. Mend for [level]. Gain benign growths for each wound mended, [level] equal to what was mended.
8. Gain a negative mutation, gain a positive mutation.
9. Deformity. You are disquieting to behold. ‍-​[level] penalty on impression rolls.
10. Boils. Covered in boils and sores. As bruise.
11. Claws. Grow claws from your tarsus. Unarmed strikes are clawing attacks dealing [level] extra damage.
12. A benign growth becomes a tumor.
13. Cancerous cicatrix: each long rest, mend for [level], and gain a tumors for each wound mended, their level equal to what was mended.
15. Gain an endowment mutation.
16. Reconfiguration. Lose [level] points in random attribute, but gain that many in another.
18. Cancerous regeneration. Each long rest, gain regeneration with level equal the highest level among your tumors.
19. Headaches. 1d8 + Con rolls over virulence or lose fatigue when using mental attributes.
20. Duplicate another, random mutation, wound, or affliction.

Transformations

1. Neodermis. In various places, begin growing (1d6) fur, thick fur, fuzz, bristles, skin, or teeth.
2. Malbrachyptery. Grow ineffective, malformed bat wings in a random location.
3. Wet. Your chitin is covered in a (1d4) wet, oily, sticky, or jelly‍-​like substance.
4. Antlers. Sprout brittle antlers from a random location.
5. Tail. A tail grows from somewhere on your body, not necessarily behind you.
6. Ocular. Tiny eyes grow on your chitin and in your fluids.

• high pitched, screeching voice
• teeth

1. Hyperfocus. Before any action that requires focus, you can choose gain up to virulence many bonus focus. When you take any action that isnt the same action, lose all focus.

2. Multitasking. You can turn any natural minor action into two bonus, multitasked minor actions. Multitask actions are done with disadvantage. Gain virulence/degree action points on any multitask action.

3. Strong, traumatic aversion to (1d6) bats, worms, blood, mantids, fungus, or something random (probably biological). You have nightmares about it.

4. Strong, inexplicable attraction to (1d6) bats, worms, blood, mantids, fungi or something random (probably biological)

Negative Mutations

1. Benign growth. No effect.
2. Gain the chronic pain wound, level [level].
3. Smell awful. Olfactory Disguise penalty equal to [level].
4. Gain an negative endowment mutation.
5. Oncovirus. Gain tumor, level equal to [level].
6. Atrophy. [Level] many core stat are debuffed; roll 1d6 for muscle weakness (Str), convulsions (Dex), random bleeding (Con), irritability (Cmp), trouble focusing (Att), mental fogginess (Ins).
7. Gain an affliction.
8. Weak senses. 1d4: failing eyesite, losing hearing, numbness or fading smell. ‍-​[level] Perception penalty.
9. Deterioration. When another mutation would deteriorate, deteriorate it by 1 more.
10. Weak chitin. ‍-​[level] natural armor class. (1d6 reason: soft, brittle, holes, fungus, flaking, covered in veins)
11. Increased Metabolism. Require [level] extra meals.
12. Muscle atrophy. Lose [level] many ranks in a random physical skill.
13. Parasite. (1d4) worms, fungus, wasp, or botfly.
14. Soul damage. Decrease soul capacity by [level].
15. Marrow. A functional bone grows inside you. Each long rest when satiated, gain a 1d1 Blood Dice.
16. Degeneration. Random body part is (lvl=1) mostly usable, (lvl=2) usable with difficulty, (lvl=3) small and atrophied, (lvl>4) melted away, won’t grow back.
17. Cancerous. Each long rest, when you have fewer than [level] tumors, save or gain a tumor.
18. Chronic. Gain an affliction; affliction is chronic, and can’t be cured below virulence.
19. Frail. Lose [level] stamina.

Afflictions

Afflictions behave similarly to mutations, but afflictions are always amenable to curing saves. On curing saves, criticals are twice as effective, and so are fumbles. Virulence saves are 1d20 over Virulence. Afflictions of Virulence 0 can be mended, and will leave special wounds that might reapply the affliction when aggrieved.

1. Living poison: each rest, take damage equal to Virulence. On failed curing save, increase virulence by 1. Leaves /crawling wound/_.
2. Withering Affliction. Any time you use an attribute, ‍-​1 to it. Leaves withered wound.
3. Fragilerot: Every rest, lose 1 armor. For every failed curing save, one point of this drain becomes permanent. Leaves rotten wound.
4. Emponder: you move very slowly. Instead of a full action, take a minor action each turn. You can power through it for the rest of combat, if you pass a virulence save, but virulence will grow by 2. If it fails you’re paralysed for [virulence] rounds.. Leaves ponderous joints.
5. Red purge: when you gain a blood die, vomit it back up and lose HP equal to twice its highest face. Leaves purging scars.
6. Meltlung: whenever you exert yourself, virulence save or lose 1 stamina, coughing out hemolymph. Leaves melted lungs.
7. Gutswell: you are constantly hungry. It takes [virulence] many meals to be fully satiated. When you eat this much, increase virulence by 1. Leaves swolen fat.
8. Vesperphage: when Plasia or the Pla modifier is used, debuff it by 1 unless it’s at 0, in which case virulence save or vesper a decrease its die class (dying if it’s already 0). If the save passes, virulence increases by 1. Leaves phage wound.
9. Bubbling pox: each rest, virulence save or gain the negative mutation for what was rolled. Increase virulence on a failed curing save. An extra point of virulence is lost on successful curing save. Leaves bubbled flesh.
10. Repeating curse: you constantly mutter and repeat yourself. When you take an action, you will attempt to repeat it [virulence] many times unless someone or something stops you. If someone stops you, increase virulence. Leaves repeating tic.
11. Shadowarp: All rolled nerve dice interfere. All interferences have an additional bonus equal to [virulence]. Leaves umbral defect.
12. Soulbleed: When you rest with nerve dice in your soul, virulence save or gain umbral wound. When you remove nerve dice from your soul, increase virulence by 1. Leaves cracked soul.
13. Insidious infection: If [virulence] is odd, you can virulence save as a free action (or automatically on next rest): on failure, increase virulence and take internal damage equal to virulence. If [virulence] is even, as a free action you can can gain respite equal to twice virulence (10 if Virulence is 0); increase virulence by 3. Leaves insidious itch.
14. Ichneumon plague: as the egg injection clan technique, but time scale is rests rather than turns, and Virulence is the number of eggs. On failed curing save, a blood die in consumed and has its die class added to virulence (if you have no blood dice, take internal damage equal to [virulence] and increase Virulence by 1). Leaves ichneumon virus.
15. Flowers of agony: when you have blood dice, decrease the size of the smallest one. A red growth, almost too grotesque to be called a flower, will sprout from your body, occasionally spreading spores like a fine mist; increase virulence by 1. When you don’t have blood dice, take damage equal to [virulence]. Leaves seeds of agony.
16. Bloodspore: fungal hyphae grow and weave throughout your body, feeding on ichor. Can infest [virulence] many blood dice. Infested dice can’t and won’t do or affect anything, including the long rest mutation check. This affliction will try to infest new dice whenever they’re available; if their class exceeds its virulence, decrease virulence. If you don’t have virulence many dice, take the difference in internal damage. For curing saves, add the number of infested dice to the DC.
17. Sleeping death: contagious. Roll a die of class virulence. No symptoms for that many days, then you and everyone it spread to will manifest the same random affliction. Does not leave a wound.
18. Thinking pox: each long rest, loose 1 point in a mental stat and increase Virulence. Thinking Pox is sentient, and knows it will die if cured. Leaves existential trauma.
19. Shifting sickness: manifests as a random affliction. After each failed save, symptoms will disappear for one day, then the manifestation changes to a different affliction. On successful saves, instead of being cured, it becomes that affliction and virulence decreases by 1.
20. Apocalypse plague: On long rest, gain a 1d1 Blood Die. Increase the virulence of another affliction by 1 (to a maximum of [virulence] + 1); gain a new affliction if none can be increased.

Cordycrepuscle.

Vesper Moods

Roll Requisite

1. Contentment. No requisite. You pass automatically.
2. Presence. Meditate for as many hours as you have vespers.
3. Hunger. On top of normal requirements, consume as many meals as you have vespers.
4. Curiosity. Eat, or just sample, things you’ve never eaten before.
5. Boredom. Offer each of your vespers a Blood Dice to play with. Gain a mutation, neutral if good mood, negative if bad mood.
6. Unfulfilled. Recite an expression to your vespers, not necessarily to imprint.
7. Restlessness. Use one technique from each of your endowments.
8. Lust. Kill a mantis and eat them.
9. Loneliness. Acquire another vesper.
10. Motivation. Invent a new technique, or creatively apply an existing one.
11. Inspiration. Offer the largest Blood Dice you can. Gain a new endowment.
12. Sporulation. Infect an inoculum. It will begin growing a fungus
13. Epiphany. Gain a blood secret.
14. Assurance. Fight a vesperbane, the more powerful the better.
15. Ferocity. Kill a vesperbane and perform phagein.
16. Ecstacy. Seek to gain Arete. Whenever you’d gain Arete, gain another point of Arete.
17. Rebellion. Break an oath. You are no longer bound by that oath.
18. Iniquity. Gain a new oath.
19. Pharmakon. Lose a vesper you already have.
20. Spiteful. Impossible requisite; you fail.

Oaths

• Arete Fasting
• Vow of Invulnerability
• vow of blood
• The Promise of Pyramids
• The Emptiness of Emperors